Of Curses and Odd Hair Colors
by esantin
Summary: Divergence from book 24(22) onward. Ryouga returns to Nerima, but something's gone wrong. He is now a she, and it seems to be permanent! There's a cure, supposedly, but knowing and having are two different things, especially considering the competition...
1. Part One: Of Curses And Odd Hair Colors

Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma 1/2. Never have, never will. Rather, it is the property of Rumiko Takahashi, Viz, and a bunch of other people, none of whom are me. If you think I could come up with something like this, I'm very flattered, but I'm sorry to disappoint you; I didn't. If I had, I wouldn't be as poor as I am.

Timeframe: This diverges from the main timeline shortly before vol. 24 of the manga. It may also be slightly AU otherwise, I'm not sure. Since the timeline is vague at best in this series, I'm going to simply say that it's been quite some time since Ryouga has last appeared. 

***

**_Part One: The Pink-Haired Girl_**

**_Prologue: Ry… Ryouga?_**

"Ranma Saotome! Prepare to *die*!"

The aforementioned pig-tailed martial artist sighed and leapt off the fence, which was quickly demolished by an attack so fast that it seemed to simply explode. All Ranma saw of the actually attacker was a yellow-colored, human-shaped blur bouncing off the fence as it was reduced to splinters. He blinked in surprise even as he assumed a defensive posture; Ryouga sure had gotten fast. 

Waitaminute. 

That wasn't Ryouga's voice. But the challenge was the lost boy's usual battle cry; even though it was shared by several others, no others had ever managed it in the same maniacal-depressive tone (maniacal, yes; depressive, usually not). The confusing part, though, was that Ranma was sure that the weapon to demolish the fence had been an umbrella. How many people, really, fought with umbrellas?

All this ran through his head as he tracked the blur that had attacked him. It stopped, finally, against a building with a deep overhang that cast the figure in shadow. And a very familiar bamboo umbrella was open, hiding most of the person from view. 

"Ryouga?" He asked curiously, as the person he assumed to be his perpetually lost rival didn't move. Or speak for that matter, other than a low growling sound.

"Ryouga?" he repeated, starting to get annoyed. The growling only got louder. Ranma noticed with a start that the sound was somewhat high pitched. And filled with fury and frustration, although that was more expected.

This lack of action confused Ranma. Ryouga – it had to be the aquatranspig – was not the sort of person to cut off an attack. Ranma readied an offensive, anything to cut off the stalemate, when with a resigned yell Ryouga did something that made him freeze.

Lifted the umbrella. And… stepped out into the sunlight, revealing…

A rather pretty, if disheveled and dirty, young girl with short pink hair held back by a yellow bandanna and dressed in matching clothing that hung very baggily on her frame. Her face twisted up as she looked at Ranma into an expression of… something. Ranma never did see what the expression was becoming, because the girl was simultaneously flipping the umbrella onto the huge pack she carried – or trying to at least. She collapsed unconscious before finishing the motion. 

At this point Ranma was seriously confused. 

"Ry… Ryouga?"

***

~Mordain


	2. The Pink Haired Girl

Disclaimer: I don't own it. If I did, though, it would have gone a lot differently. Heh.

Notes: Chapter one! Brings back memories. Like, of freshman year... god, I'm a senior now. Revised 11/04/04.

---

_**Part One, Chapter One: The Pink-Haired Girl**_

Kasumi was the first to notice Ranma approaching the Tendo household. She smiled, glad that he was home safely – he was quite late, she had been worried. As he drew closer, she could see that part of the reason for his delay was slumped unconscious in his arms. Kasumi couldn't see any details other than an unfamiliar shock of bright fuchsia hair, and she frowned slightly, almost unnoticeably. Ranma got into far too many fights, far too casually, for her taste.  
  
Then, as he came even closer, she noticed that Ranma's expression wasn't the one he typically wore after winning a battle. Rather than arrogant, suffusing smugness, it was almost blank, rather befuddled, and with a faint wash of worry that was not entirely alien to him but certainly rare, at least.  
  
Then he was standing on the doorstep, where she had been waiting, and Kasumi looked down at the body he held. If her suspicions were true, then he – she, Kasumi corrected herself with no little amount of surprise – would be in need of some medical attention.  
  
Ranma waited, feeling rather more tired than usual for this time of day but determined to find out what was going on, as Kasumi inspected the girl he had carried home. It was only for a moment, though, before the eldest Tendo daughter stepped out of the doorway and let him come inside. As they walked to the nearest couch, Kasumi's brow furrowed in confusion as she began to recognize bits and pieces – the bandanna holding pink hair out of closed eyes, the weatherbeaten traveling pack that Ranma now carried – and it weighed a ton, too – with the red bamboo umbrella strapped unto the top of it.  
  
"Who...?" she asked, her eyes still cataloguing the cuts and bruises old and new but mostly old that her new patient bore, as they walked the short distance.  
  
"Ryouga... I think." Ranma dubiously tacked on the qualifier. He wasn't positive, after all, but...  
  
Kasumi nodded, registering only the most fleeting moment of surprise. All the clues fit that person, and, after all, it wouldn't have been the first time that someone showed up to her house with the wrong gender. "Oh my," she murmured to herself, more in reaction to the girl's condition then her identity.  
  
Besides, it seemed appropriate.  
  
---  
  
Ranma rubbed his shoulders and glared balefully at the pack lying innocuously in one corner, leaning against the wall. He glanced curiously at Ryouga as Kasumi rushed upstairs for whatever it was her nursing instincts told her was necessary to bring the battered-looking pseudo-girl back to some semblance of health. Ranma slumped into a chair nearby.  
  
_Heh, so Ryouga found Jusenkyou again. Wonder why he didn't jump into Nannichuan... guess he couldn't find it. A girl's better than a pig, at least... Akane won't kill him when she finds out..._ then Kasumi returned, but only for long enough to toss a pile of supplies on Ranma's lap before disappearing again, this time into the kitchen. It was only for a second, though, and she soon returned with a bowl of water and some ice and set to work.  
  
Ryouga was practically covered with bandages by the time Kasumi was done. None of it, Ranma noticed, was very bad, though... just a lot of cuts and bruises, no broken bones or even pulled muscles that Kasumi could detect. Ranma remembered that he had seemed in perfect form earlier. He was just... battered.  
  
And female. Ranma reminded himself of that, although it wasn't terribly difficult. Wise to the subtle differences between forms and reasonably familiar with Ryouga's personality, Ranma wondered exactly how much of her male-half's endurance the pink-haired girl had lost and how much of her previous 'strength' had been bravado and determination rather than actual power.  
  
There was a whistle from the kitchen, and after a glance from Kasumi Ranma stood to fetch the kettle of hot water. At least one of these problems could be solved relatively easily.

---

Ryouga gradually woke to a world of pain and darkness. Not terrible pain, he'd felt worse, but rather an aching, deep hurt that had been with him for longer than he cared to think about. He panicked slightly at the darkness, but as he came to coherency he realized a very simple reason for this and calmed down. His eyes were closed. He opened them to see the face of Kasumi Tendo, and relaxed. Kasumi had that sort of effect on people. He flicked a few strands of dark pink – he winced at the color – hair out of his eyes and shifted a little into a more comfortable position, smiling briefly in gratitude. Kasumi responded in kind, brilliantly.  
  
The reason for his return came back with a rather painful start. Ranma... his eyes narrowed with revitalizing determination, and he sat up and looked around for the other teenager. He couldn't see the bastard, but he did start to feel a little dizzy...  
  
Something very wet, and very hot, was unceremoniously poured on his head before he found who he was looking for. He whirled as best he could, making him even dizzier, but he didn't care as he looked into the face of his rival, just as it was in the middle of changing from a confident smirk to surprise.  
  
"Don't you think I've tried that, you moron?!" he yelled shrilly, wincing even as he did so at the soprano tone that emanated from his throat.  
  
"You... you were supposed to change back!" It was a rare treat to see Ranma so flabbergasted, but Ryouga just ignored him and looked around. At least only Kasumi and Ranma were there... then he noticed Akane watching, a confused expression on her face, from halfway down the stairs, and wilted. He – she – curled unconsciously into a slightly fetal position, face angled downward so that all she could see were Kasumi's knees and feet.  
  
Before Ryouga had a chance to fall totally into despair, Kasumi suddenly vanished from Ryouga's vision. She looked up almost involuntarily after the one person whom she had thought would help her, surprised. She didn't realize exactly how much of her pain was visible on her face; she was much too tired to even attempt to hide it anymore.  
  
Just as suddenly as she had left, though, she came back, walking down the stairs rather more quickly than usual and carrying a bundle.  
  
"It's a change of clothing that should fit you. Do you think you can walk?"  
  
For a moment Ryouga didn't respond, then she nodded, causing more pink strands of newly-freed hair to fall over her eyes and completely block them from view. "I think so..." her voice came out in a raspy whisper. She cleared her throat. "Yes, I can." _There. That was better...  
_  
"Good. I'll help you upstairs, so you can change."  
  
---  
  
Ryouga slept through the rest of the day and the night, awakening late the next morning convinced, more or less, that she felt better. She blinked at the ceiling for a few minutes before sitting up and stretching arms that still felt too small, too light, even after months of having to get used to them. She absently noted that she was in the room that Ranma and his father slept in, and they weren't there, their futons rolled up and stowed against the wall. A quick glance at the clock revealed the simple reason. Of course – it was well into the morning. Ranma and Akane had probably left for school already. She sighed, clutching her knees close to her chest and refusing to give in to the tears that threatened to come. Her plan had failed, and she felt even more lost than she usually did, even when wandering through some unknown region of Japan. She was considering sneaking away when her stomach growled loudly, making her laugh for the first time in a while, boy or girl. Kasumi should still be home, and there should be no problem procuring food, she remembered. Idly Ryouga wondered when she had last eaten. Mind made up, she began to change into her old clothes that were sitting in a clean pile next to her, and then stopped. The ones she was wearing fit her much better, if still a bit loosely. She recognized them, with a bit of embarrassment as to why she recognized them, as a set of Akane's pajamas. One of the least feminine – she sighed in relief - white with a random pattern of small blue spirals.  
  
Summoning up what was left of her will, she opened the door and started downstairs.  
  
She tried to be as quiet as possible, but was noticed anyway. "Oh, I hear you're awake, Ryouga-chan!" came a cheerful voice from the kitchen. "I saved you some breakfast; you must be very hungry!"  
  
Ryouga heard her stomach growl in response to that remark and she smiled slightly despite herself. It was impossible to be entirely gloomy around Kasumi.  
  
Kasumi politely restrained herself to small talk, not asking anything or bringing up any topics of conversation that could aggravate her guest as Ryouga ravenously cleared a well-laden plate.  
  
"So, what brings you to Nerima?" she asked cheerfully, coming back from the kitchen with a tray on which a small steaming and pleasant-smelling pot and two small porcelain cups sat.  
  
Ryouga tried to evade the question at first. "Oh, nothing really, just, you know, wandering through..." She put her hand to the back of her head and laughed, but it came out even weaker than usual.  
  
Kasumi didn't accept or reject the non-answer. "Do you think you could get me your old clothing? Maybe I could alter them to fit you..."  
  
Surprised at the change of topic, Ryouga nodded and went upstairs, fetched the bundle, and came back, handing it to Kasumi, who didn't accept them.  
  
"You didn't get lost."  
  
Ryouga's heart sank. "Oh, um, really? Must've been just luck..." _I've gotta get out of here!_  
  
"No, it's more than that, I think. You have a sense of direction in that body, don't you?"  
  
The pink haired girl crumbled even more. "I... I think so. I haven't really gotten lost since the..." she trailed off.  
  
"The what, Ryouga-chan?"  
  
The name did it. "I... I can't... damn it!" she punched at the table in frustration, cracking it, but not breaking through to the floor like she would have before. "I'm sorry, Kasumi..." She stood, bowed, and took off out into the back yard and was over the fence before Kasumi could blink.  
  
"Oh, poor dear..."  
  
---  
  
By the time Furinkin High let out for lunch, the cool weather had warmed up; this made it quite pleasant outside, so the population of the school quickly dispersed around the grounds. Ranma leaned against a tree holding the lunch Akane had cooked for him cautiously. Looking around to make sure that she wasn't watching, he furtively buried it at the base of the tree and hoped that he wasn't poisoning the grass. He then leaned back again, wondering if maybe Ukyou would cook him something... he really was very hungry.  
  
He wasn't expecting to be used as a landing cushion before he could stand up to go ask her, however. What the... then he saw the distinctive pink hair and rolled his eyes. A slight snore emanated from the girl.  
  
Somehow, falling from a tree didn't wake Ryouga up, but being pushed off of Ranma did. "Wha..." she mumbled, and yawned. Blearily she looked up, blinking to clear her vision. When she saw Ranma sitting next to her, a blank expression on his face, she growled, "Ranma..."  
  
She spoke the last loud enough to attract the attention of the other students sitting nearby. They all knew that anyone saying his name in that tone of voice was either another fiancée of his, out to kill him, or both. The fact that the girl was wearing pajamas – even very modest pajamas – only made them more interested. Several people rushed to Nabiki, intent on making bets as to who this newcomer was. Nabiki took them gladly, grinning broadly at the profit that was almost _too_ easy.  
  
Ranma jumped up. "What're you doing here?"  
  
Ryouga reached back for her umbrella then cursed, realizing that she had left it back at the Tendo's in her hurry to leave. "I forgot to do something yesterday," she said quietly.  
  
Ranma didn't even catch the threatening tone that was slipping into his rival's voice. "Yeah? What?"  
  
"Kill you! Ranma, prepare to die!" This surprised no one in the least, save perhaps Ranma.  
  
Akane sighed and ran towards the two as Ryouga launched herself at Ranma, who dodged, but barely. Her mallet appearing in her hand, she conked the girl on the head, not hard enough to hurt her but enough to get her attention.  
  
She turned. "What was that for?" she asked, rubbing her head where a small bump was forming.  
  
"Ryouga, stop that! This can't possibly be Ranma's fault!" She was a little startled to find herself saying that.  
  
The entire school froze for a moment - in surprise from both the name and Akane's actions - then recovered. More than a few cursed as they handed Nabiki the money they had lost. How were they supposed to know that someone else had fallen into the Nyannichuan?  
  
"I don't care!" Ryouga screamed, startling Akane into stumbling a few steps back. A red aura sizzled into life around her. "Stay out of this, Akane!" She launched herself at Ranma again. Ranma jumped, landing behind Ryouga just as her punch failed to connect, and kicked her in the back, hard, forgetting for a moment that Ryouga was no longer a boy with skin like inch-think steel. She collapsed with a grunt of pain, while Ranma took a confused defensive posture.  
  
"That's not good enough..." Ryouga slowly pulled herself up to her feet. Blood trickled from a nasty-looking gash on her forehead and into her eyes, but she hardly seemed to notice. "Fight me for real, Ranma!"   
  
Once more she jumped, this time with one foot extended in a kick. Now she did connect, a glancing blow to his arm, but Ranma barely felt it. The fight continued like this for a few more minutes – Ryouga attacking, always physically and recklessly, while Ranma dodged – as he wondered what the hell was going on. Ryouga wasn't as strong or as tough as a female, but she was fighting as if she were, not using any special attacks that might actually give her a chance. He remembered when he had actually countered. Ryouga hadn't cared, even though it had hurt her and slowed her down. Then Ranma finally realized what was happening, and stopped dodging, blocking Ryouga's next punch to his gut with one forearm. It didn't even hurt. He did the same for the next few attacks, noticing as he did so how drastically weaker Ryouga was as a girl. She was several times faster, he knew, but wasn't really using the speed to her advantage. _I should've expected this from bacon-breath, but I didn't think it was this bad...  
_  
Noticing that Ranma wasn't doing anything, Ryouga stopped. Her battle aura was gone, and tears streamed down her face. "Stop that and fight me, damnit!" she screamed, almost choking on the words.  
  
"Not a chance." _Ryouga, why do you want me to kill you?_  
  
"Fine then!" She glared at Ranma and closed her eyes. He was the closest on to her... she began to gather her energy, finding it laughably easy to summon the appropriate emotion.  
  
"Perfect Shishihoukodan!" she screamed, her aura flaring into existence once again, black this time and infinitely more powerful. The day seemed to darken, as if all of the light was being banished by it.  
  
"Shit! Stop it, Ryouga!" shouted Ranma as he rushed forward, trying to stop her.  
  
Time slowed down for the girl who called herself Ryouga Hibiki. Ranma inched through the air towards her, unstoppable, but it was fitting that he be caught in it as well; kill or be killed, that would be his final lesson, a bad one indeed to be learnt the hard way. In a great burst of concentrated energy Ryouga released her emotions that been building up for so long... it was so simple, all she had to do was remember. It was different this time from her suicidal depression, yet related to those easily recalled emotions; it was outrage at the world, and unfairness; at cruelty, and at cosmic jokes of which she was the sole target; at people who couldn't and at people who wouldn't understand; at those who pretended to care, and at those who truly did. Even before she released the Shishihoukodan she felt dead – but that was the trick, and she avoided it. As the first wave of incredible crushing force began to press down, she looked up at the horrified face of the girl that she – no, he – had loved, and smiled joylessly, eyes so full of painful emotion that they looked totally blank.  
  
"Akane... I love you..." he whispered the words in such a low tone that it shouldn't have carried more than an inch past his lips, but somehow in the eerie silence before the massive destruction that followed not a split second afterward, it carried to at least two sets of ears.  
  
And that glimmer of positive emotion, the only one that Ryouga could imagine existing at that moment, gave him enough willpower to refuse to slump into the near-dead state that had protected him from the power of his own attack in the past, but not this time. He felt the crushing force and welcomed the oblivion it promised, not seeing anymore for the total darkness that surrounded him now, darkness that seemed to siphon all the light out of the day and turn the bright noontime into midnight.  
  
Akane heard, and her eyes widened in astonishment as the pillar flared into existence.   
  
Ranma heard, the words pinging through his brain like a bolt of lightening, a spark of electricity that opened new pathways of thought and subsequent action. Without quite knowing how, he accelerated, ramming headfirst into Ryouga. For an instant, he felt the immense crushing force and every part of his body screamed in pain. Then suddenly it was gone in a burst of white light and Ryouga's eyes widened in surprise as he tumbled down... down... then stopped, and all was water and earth and confusion and then nothing to their senses.

Above them, the Shishihoukodan exploded noiselessly, dissolving into a few tendrils of black smoke that quickly vanished into the once again bright day.

---  
  
Akane heard the sound of rushing water. The shallow, two-foot diameter pit that was the result of the chi-pillar quickly filled up with water before someone had the presence of mind to run inside and get the broken main turned off.

Ranma-chan pulled herself out of the makeshift pool and coughed up water that she had inhaled while Akane pulled Ryouga out. The pink-haired girl started to stir, instinct rising to make her cough up the water that spilled, red-tinted, out of her lungs.

Ranma just watched while Akane helped Ryouga up, occasionally patting her on the back to help bring up the bloody water. The bedraggled girl looked up miserably. _Damn it... why'd he have to save me... Ranma Saotome... interfering jerk... _  
  
"Let's get you to the nurse, ok?" Akane asked with a small smile.  
  
Startled, Ryouga looked up and nodded, feeling a little better despite everything. She was just too drained now to feel much else than exhaustion. "Th... thanks Akane..." she shivered.  
  
"It's alright."  
  
Ranma-chan watched, not making any motion to follow. Noticing this, Akane turned and shouted. "Hey, slowpoke, are you coming or not?"  
  
Ranma ran to catch up with them. _Ow... ow... ow... owowowow..._ She slowed down to a walk.  
  
---  
  
The nurse on duty looked up to see a rather battered-looking Ranma Saotome enter with a cross expression. "Mr. Saotome, in a fight again..." She shook her head disapprovingly, all the while making bets in her head as to who it had been. Not many could put the pig-tailed boy – currently girl – into that kind of a state.   
  
She was only mildly surprised to see a total stranger follow, being helped along by Akane. It also wasn't much of a surprise that the stranger looked to be in even worse shape than Ranma. What did surprise her was the fact that the pink haired girl seemed strangely familiar, and that she was dressed in a pair of exceedingly battered and muddy pajamas.  
  
Neither of them were too badly hurt despite everything – at least no broken bones or internal bleeding, there were a lot of pretty nasty bruises and aching limbs - so it wasn't long before they were kicked out of the nurse's office, both dressed in the school uniform since their other clothing was unsalvageable. Ranma felt distinctly uncomfortable in his, but Ryouga was practically fuming. Naturally, she had been given the girl's uniform... the fact that it was a perfect fit, while Ranma's was too large, was of negative consolation.  
  
Ranma experienced a rare moment of wisdom while he and Ryouga were walking home. He didn't tease Ryouga about the dress. Of course, the evil looks that telegraphed the thought 'open your mouth and I'll rip it off' that Ryouga was giving him might have had something to do with that, but it was still quite amazing. Akane had had to stay to finish her classes, but he had been dismissed as soon as he was proclaimed fit to walk. It figured. The one time she would've been welcome – as a distraction for Ryouga – she wasn't there. The two walked the first stretch in silence.  
  
Ryouga seemed introspective. _Hey, I guess that's natural, considering that she – he – just tried to..._ Ranma couldn't get himself to complete the thought. It was too disturbing. Ranma tried to start up a conversation instead.  
  
"So, um, Ryouga... what happened to you?"  
  
Ryouga's expression was disturbingly blank. "It was the Musk."  
  
"The what?"  
  
Ryouga sighed, too tired to argue. "I guess I might as well tell you... since I'm stuck here for a while..." she made no attempt to explain that statement, just launched into her story.  
  
---  
  
A small black piglet stood on the edge of a rocky ledge overlooking a large valley of a description that was etched permanently into the minds of every person who visited it; hundreds of small to large pools of perfectly clear water with bamboo poles scattered randomly through them. More of the poles were knocked down or broken than had been before, he noted, or would have had he really been paying attention to such sundries. He stared for several minutes in some shock, not quite believing that it was real. Finally it hit him and he started to cry as best he could in pig form from the joy of it all.  
  
An interruption startled him out of it.  
  
He felt himself being lifted up by the bandanna around his neck. "Hey, Herb! I found one!"  
  
Ryouga recovered from his surprise and started to struggle furiously. But it was no good; the hand that held him was too strong. He twisted around and saw that it was a... boy holding him. A boy with dog-ears – no, just a hat of some sort, Ryouga could see human ears in the normal place - and oddly shaped features. What the hell?  
  
A tall man with tri-colored hair snatched him out of the grasp of the dog-boy. Ryouga didn't bother to inspect this one for unusual qualities; he just struggled as much as he could, bwee'ing loudly. _If only I could twist around to bite him!_ The man got treated to many of the more as well as less exotic curses that the pig-language had to offer, but unfortunately he seemed unaware or uncaring of this fact.  
  
Ryouga wasn't really aware of what his abductor did from that point on, at least not until he heard a familiar voice.  
  
"Honored customer, this is Nyannichuan, spring of drowned girl."  
  
The badly accented voice making that announcement made him stop for a moment in his frantic attempts to free himself from the grasp of the person apparently named Herb.  
  
Then he was unceremoniously dunked into the pool. He came up sputtering, upset that he was female and even moreso about being a _naked_ female - he did his best to ignore that fact - but glad enough to be human, at least. Herb still had a firm grip on his bandanna, which was now tied correctly around his head. He was dragged out unto dry land and splashed again with cold water by someone standing off to the side who he hadn't noticed before, an older man who, like the other two, seemed vaguely inhuman.  
  
"There. Now she's yours, Herb-sama," announced the man who had just splashed him.  
  
"Excuse me?!" Ryouga protested. Twisting easily out of the stunned Herb's grip – _Is he ogling me?!_ – he angrily tossed him into the spring as well. While the now-female Herb sat dumbly in the water, staring at her newly-acquired breasts, Ryouga snatched away the odd bucket from the other man and splashed her like had been done to him, just for good measure. _There. An eye for an eye... Though, that seemed pretty stupid.  
_  
The old man was frozen in horror. The guide, suddenly realizing who the pig must have been, hightailed it out of there as fast as he could.  
  
Herb snapped out of it as soon as she realized what had happened and climbed out of the pool. "I will kill you for that, pig-woman..."  
  
"Pig-woman?" Ryouga screamed in anger. "I've been called a lot of things... but if you ever call me 'woman' again you will be the one to die!"  
  
Herb stumbled back a little in surprise. "You... you can speak?"  
  
Now it was Ryouga's turn to not understand. "Of course I can. I'm human, you idiot. And male, too... get me some hot water and I'll prove it."  
  
The other man was the first one to speak. He did so in a soft, strained tone. "Are you saying that you are human, and the pig was your cursed form?"  
  
"Yes, are you deaf or something?"  
  
He closed his eyes and muttered under his breath. "I'm sorry for the confusion."  
  
"Hey!" Herb protested. "I'm a _girl _here!"  
  
She seemed to have gotten over ogling herself, Ryouga noted. It was the wrong thing to think about, however. _Kami... so am I..._ he shook his head violently._ Not for long. I just have to find the Nannichuan_. She – temporarily! – said as much, but the old man only shook his head.  
  
"No, I'm afraid that won't cure you. You see, the Chiisuiton Ladle," he said, gesturing toward the object that Ryouga had uncaringly tossed on the ground, "is magic, with the power to lock anyone into their cursed form. Its magic is stronger than that of Jusenkyou."  
  
Herb seemed to have already known this, and had lapsed into a stream of vulgarity. When she ran out of words in Japanese, she continued in Chinese and several others. Then she suddenly stopped and stood, adjusting her clothing as was necessary. "Parsley," she commanded before the old man could say anything else, "We are leaving." She sounded somewhat ridiculous, trying to speak in a low man's voice with female vocal cords.  
  
"Wha... hey! Are you just going to leave me here? Is there a cure for this?" Ryouga demanded.  
  
Herb glanced at her over her shoulder. "There is," she said simply, before lifting up the old man and flying – flying? – off. Ryouga blinked. Yes, she was flying, or at least floating, she realized as the two quickly vanished from sight.  
  
Curses in more languages than Herb could ever hope to learn rang periodically through the valley for the rest of the day and well into the night.  
  
---  
  
Ryouga ground her teeth together and clenched a fist uselessly at her side at the memory. "When I find that bastard, she's dead... leaving me there like that... All I could find out from the guide was that Herb was some sort of royalty of something called the 'Musk Dynasty'. He didn't even know where they came from, just that they visited Jusenkyou sometimes to turn animals into people."  
  
Ranma struggled for some sort of answer. "Hey, at least there's a cure, right?" he said in an attempt to cheer Ryouga up. "If we can find it, we can get'cha back to normal, right?"  
  
Ryouga was silent the rest of the way.

---  
  
-Mordain


	3. An Interlude Before the Plot Thickens

Disclaimer: Neither Ranma ½, its characters, nor its setting are mine. But this story is my intellectual property. I thought of this particular string of occurrences, I put the words in this order, and please do not take them and claim them as your own. 

Note: Considerable OOCness in this part. 

Kir: There wasn't in the first?

Shut up, Kir-_chan_…

**_---------------------------------_**

**_Chapter Two: An Interlude Before The Potato Soup – Er, I Mean Plot - Thickens_**

Ryouga felt odd living with the Tendo and Saotome families. No one seemed to be upset about her presence, which was a relief but distinctly surprising, considering her previous reputation with the two families. But even Ranma didn't seem to mind her, and Ryouga couldn't manage to really believe that his old nemesis was actually being sinister and cruel in some devious way. The hatred that he had held for the pig-tailed boy – which had been fading anyway - had dwindled down to only glowing embers of faint jealousy. At least in Ranma's case, the curse was temporary… he had all the perks of being able to be a girl without most of the downsides. Ryouga gritted her teeth at the thought of a few of those downsides. She didn't relish the thought of any of her new hosts finding out about… exactly how totally female this damn body was. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the anger. It wouldn't do to have someone asking why she was so perturbed. It would be too horrifyingly embarrassing, trying to either answer or evade the questions. 

_Calm. Calm down, Ryouga. You're a guest. _As unfamiliar as she was to the practice of hiding anger, the completely different nature of this anger made it a requirement. Sighing and wondering briefly if staying was really the best course of action, she stood and dressed. It was the second day after she had arrived, she thought, although her sense of that time was fuzzy. She vaguely remembered being fussed over by Kasumi and – her cheeks reddened at the thought – Akane, who was understandably upset. 

Her stomach growled loudly, reminding her forcefully that her memories did not include having eaten more than some miso soup. She changed out of the (clean and whole) pajamas she was wearing as quickly as she could, trying to avoid looking in the old full-length mirror that was leaned up against the large pile of boxes that showed the room's history as storage space. She'd gotten over the nosebleeding habit out of necessity, but that didn't mean that she was going to gape at herself. 

After she was fully dressed, however, she dared a look. Kasumi had apparently been serious about altering her old clothes, she realized, because they were what she had, unknowingly in her rush not to look, put on. They had been adjusted so drastically that she hardly recognized them, cut down to fit her new body far too well, she thought. It even looked vaguely feminine, something that made Ryouga distinctly uncomfortable, but at least they fit. She dared to examine herself more closely, to the point of combing her tangled mess of pink – really, the Jusenkyou ponds had a sick sense of humor - hair into something approaching its old style. It was considerably longer than she last remembered, but she wasn't surprised at that. It was limper than before, and the bangs hung down her face past her nose, obscuring her vision. A search for a bandanna came up futile, so she eventually gave up and split it down the middle to hang unevenly on either side of her face. The result, combined with - well, everything else – made her look uncomfortably feminine. 

_It wouldn't be so bad if the shirt wasn't still so long and the pants cut down so much that it looks like I'm wearing a damn mini-dress with black leggings. _Turning suddenly away from the mirror, she opened the door and went downstairs quickly, preferring to deal with anyone but her current self.

The five residents of the house were at the table, eating a meal that Ryouga guessed to be dinner, judging by the time. It was a remarkably typical scene. Ranma and his father were fighting over some tidbit of food that one had stolen from the other; no matter which one, even the combatants probably didn't remember. Akane was shouting at Ranma – to no noticeable effect – to stop being such a jerk; he had just knocked over her tea but hadn't even noticed. Nabiki was taking the opportunity of the fight to pile more on her plate, including the bit being fought over. Soun was reading the newspaper, a slight tic in one eye the only indication that he was aware of the outside world at all. Ryouga took a brief moment to thank Kami-sama that Happosai wasn't there. That was the last thing she needed. She knew that she had a figure approaching, if not exceeding, Ranma-chan's in its… proportions. She didn't need a reminder.

Then she felt the single pair of eyes that had noticed her arrival. Kasumi smiled. "Why, hello Ryouga-chan. Did you sleep well?" she asked, smiling.

Some – not all – of the action at the table stopped when some of the others heard. Akane blinked, putting the mallet back wherever it came from, smiled in her direction – the expression was obviously somewhat forced – and greeted, "Konbanwa, Ryouga."

Ranma stopped his food battle. "Hi, Ryou – hey!" he interrupted himself. "That's mine! Nabiki!" he accused, meanwhile defending his plate from Genma's opportunistic attack.

The middle Tendo daughter just smirked at him. "Konbanwa," she greeted absently. 

Suddenly Ryouga noticed that the place at the foot of the table had somehow been cleared for him, and a plate of food deposited there by the ever-thoughtful eldest daughter.

Ryouga decided to ignore the chaos. "Yes, thank you, Kasumi," she said, bowing, before sitting down and digging in. 

The food tasted delicious, and she ate ravenously at first, but when it actually got to her stomach it felt as if she had eaten lead. She slowed, and then finally stopped eating. She felt slightly ill, and the appetizing meal in front of her suddenly made her want to gag.  

Akane noticed Ryouga suddenly stop eating and had a flash of worry. She, along with everyone else, had been surprised to see Ryouga come down to eat, acting so normal and seemingly healthy; she certainly wasn't acting like someone who had barely been out of bed for three days. _I've been avoiding her, _she realized guiltily. _But what am I supposed to say? 'I'm sorry, Ryouga, but I don't love you too?' Somehow I doubt the direct approach would work. Then there's the girl thing… _She shook her head angrily at that thought. _No, that has nothing to do with it. *He* loves… loved? me… I can't believe that I didn't realize it before. He was always so nervous around me… always brought me souvenirs from his travels… I felt so stupid when Ranma told me that it had been obvious to everyone but me that the poor boy had fallen for me practically when he first laid eyes on me. Thinking about it, Ranma seemed a little odd when he said that… he seemed almost angry at Ryouga, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't jealousy – I hope it wasn't! I wonder what it could've been… _her thoughts trailed off unto various tangents before she finally snapped them back to the problem at hand. _Geez… thinking about this isn't helping. I've got to do something… _

All of this pondering occupied a timeframe of only about two seconds. It was mostly just a reiteration of what had been going through her mind for the past three days. Determined to say something but lacking words, she just blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "How are you feeling, Ryouga?" she asked, trying her best to seem simply concerned.

Ryouga was caught unprepared. "Huh?" She had been avoiding eye contact, or any sort of contact for that matter, by intently tracing the simple pattern that circled her plate. Put on the spot, she hesitantly looked up. "What? Oh, I'm okay… thank you," she said softly. She wondered briefly what the expression on Akane's face meant, then realized what it must be and slumped down even more. _I'm making her uncomfortable. Maybe I should just leave… I don't belong here…_

Akane wasn't expecting Ryouga to become even more depressed at the simple question. _Damn… that was the wrong thing to say… I wish I knew why, though… _She tried something else. "That's good! Hey, if you're feeling up to it tomorrow, would you like to go shopping with me? You've got an appointment with Dr. Tofu in the afternoon, so we could go afterwards… maybe get you some new clothes…" She berated herself for mention clothing even as she said it. 

Ryouga caught the tone in Akane's voice this time. _Worry. She's worried about me? _She smiled softly. "Sure. That would be nice."

Akane didn't understand why she seemed happier now, but was glad to see that she had cheered the pink-haired girl up a little. "Good. I'm glad."

"I'll go with you," Ranma suddenly interjected.

"_Huh?_" The two said it in perfect unison.

Ranma looked a bit miffed at the surprise in their voices. "Hey, I've got an appointment too, y'know," he said defensively. "Besides, with the tomboy's fashion sense… I can see it now… all the sundresses…"

"Hey!" Akane protested. "I don't think you're one to talk, Mr. red bowtie!" He wasn't actually wearing that shirt at the moment, but the taunt was enough to upgrade the argument into a full-fledged Ranma-Akane word war. 

Ryouga watched them for a little while, amazed at how easily they fell back into old habits. Eventually she gave up and started to nibble on her food. It didn't seem weird at all, anymore. Everyone was behaving normally again.

The argument ended, as it usually did, with a mallet to Ranma's head. Akane had refrained from using the table, at least. Wiping her hands off with a great feeling of satisfaction, Akane turned to Ryouga and smiled again. _He seems better now. At least she started to eat again, _she thought, totally oblivious to her inconsistent pronoun use. "*Anyway*," she said, "as I was *going* to say, I'm glad you're feeling better. You had us all worried, you know. And I'll make sure baka-brain doesn't follow us tomorrow."

"I don't mind," Ryouga surprised them both by saying. "Ranma can come along."

"What? Are you sure you want him to?" Akane asked dubiously.

Ryouga searched for a reason Ranma shouldn't come and came up blank. Well, actually not quite blank, but she had a reason for being so nice. "I said Ranma could go with us. I didn't say anything about *him*.

It took Akane about zero seconds flat to understand what she meant. "Oh, I see," she said, trying not to laugh. "Well, then, I suppose I have nothing against that. We can buy *her* some new clothes too then, right?"

Ranma, nursing the rather large bump he now sported on the top of his head, scowled at them. "I was trying to do you a favor, pi - er, Ryouga." He had almost called her pig-boy out of habit. 

"And I'm doing you a favor by convincing Akane to let you come go with us."

Ranma glared.

-----------------------------

The appointment with Dr. Tofu went well. He was surprised to see Ryouga up and well so suddenly and soon, but couldn't find anything wrong with her. Ryouga, for her part, was shocked to find out that she had been out of it for three days, suffering from exhaustion and malnutrition. That explained her erratic behavior when she had first arrived, at least. Dr. Tofu let her go with instructions to keep a low activity level – namely no fighting, at least for a while – and to stay away from heavy foods. With an otherwise clean bill of heath, the doctor let her go.

Ranma – still in male form – was waiting out side the office, determined not to let them splash him before they went out. Therefore, he easily dodged the predictable bucket that Akane threw at him upon her exit, and warily watched as Ryouga followed. However, the other girl was staring at her feet, seemingly lost in thought, and more importantly didn't seem to have any source of cold water on her. 

Ryouga looked at him with a neutral expression. "Ranma, I'm sorry."

Ranma's eyebrows went into his hairline. "Nani?"

During the moment in which he was to surprised to react, Ryouga calmly took the water pistol out of her pocket and shot him… ahem, her, right between the eyes. 

From behind limp, wet bangs, Ranma-chan glared. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately, she reflected. "You are going to pay for that, Ryouga."

Ryouga smirked arrogantly, proving that yes, guys have *nothin'* on girls when it comes to the 'holier than thou' look. Her face then went serious, but not before she gave a sly smile and winked. She didn't know why she winked. She blocked the memory of ever having winked out of her brain milliseconds after having done it. But the image was forever burned in the brain of a certain pig-tailed pseudo-girl, whose eyes grew to saucer-like proportions, forgetting for a while the mechanics of blinking. It can't really be blamed on Ryouga, however. She was in the habit of smirking arrogantly, particularly when she had just beaten – in whatever manner – Ranma, and the sly smile usually worked to antagonize his rival, even if it was a friendly rivalry. As for the wink – that never happened, right?

If Ryouga had remembered the gesture, much less realized the effect she had on the shell-shocked Ranma, she would quite likely have repeated the events of chapter one with a considerably less happy ending. But she didn't, luckily, because that would be a very, very bad thing. As it was, all she did was say innocently, "Are we going to go shopping now?" She turned to Akane now, looking normal again. That is, a little downcast but cheered by having gotten Ranma with the water gun.

Akane blinked. _What the… that was weird…er than usual, even. _"Umm… yeah. Hey, maybe we should stop for lunch, first? I'm a bit hungry…" she nudged Ranma, who suddenly remembered how to blink and breathe again. 

"Yeah, lunch sounds good," Ryouga agreed affably. 

-------------------

Ranma showed considerable annoyance at having to spend the entire day as a girl, but it was more for show than anything else. She had to show *something*, and it was better than the alternative.

Being nice to Ryouga was once thing; she was her friend, after all. Being openly worried about her was another. She was Ranma Saotome, and that wasn't her style.

But she was worried about the pink-haired girl. Not that she thought Ryouga was still physically unwell; everyone else was concerned about how weak she had been when she had first arrived, how Dr. Tofu had diagnosed her with extreme exhaustion and the early stages of starvation. Ryouga was tougher than that; it wasn't a stretch at all to think that she could recover in three days, and to hell with the theory that the girl's body was more frail. Ranma had never had any trouble healing in female form; true, her endurance may go down, but her recuperation rate never did; if anything, it sped up to compensate. 

What she was worried about was Ryouga's, well, mental health. _Even *he* was never the most stable person on earth. Not that I blame him or anything; it had to be tough never being able to stay in one place for very long, never even being able to go back anywhere except by sheer luck. Hell, being cursed as a pig almost threw him over the edge, not that it wouldn't make most people a little bonkers. I think the only reason he didn't eventually go berserk and demolish a city or two was because of Akane and 'P-chan'. _She snorted softly to herself. _Did Ryouga really think I kept that secret because it was fun to taunt him with it? Well, it was – but I really didn't want him to flip one day and kill someone for eating a pork bun. At least as P-chan, someone welcomed him home. _Ranma was a little surprised at her own chain of thoughts. _Heh. Who knew? _And Ryouga's behavior recently had been very out of character. Wanting to be killed by, rather than defeating, Ranma, for one. _I can get why she wanted me to do it, at least – it's kind of sick, but it would bring a sense of completion to the business, and she did try to take me down with her. But why would she want to die without having avenged herself by killing that Herb guy? _Ranma wanted desperately to ask, but knew that the telling of that story would have to wait. When Ryouga had told her the original tale, a fierce emotion had burned in her eyes, something so dark and intense that even after three days Ranma still shuddered at the memory. 

Ranma didn't let any of her reactions to such musings show, of course, for previously stated (and probably stupid) reasons. They, having eaten a lunch consisting of submarine sandwiches, were now at the clothing store. A woman's clothing store. However much Ryouga disliked the idea, her figure was just too, well, female, much like Ranma-chan's own, to fit well in men's clothing. But they still managed to find suitably 'masculine' clothing for her. Ranma refrained from pointing out that it was useless; personal experience with a cursed body had shown her that no matter what style of clothing she wore, it couldn't hide the supermodel-like figure. She would have mentioned it, actually, if it weren't for the fact that Ryouga herself did so every time she stepped into the changing booth. 

Eventually, though, they had three sets of clothing for her, all of very modest cut and of non-skirted nature. Then… they started shopping for Ranma-chan. Who nearly ran screaming down the streets as they showed her a remarkable variety of dresses, ranging from a bubble-gum pink, frilled sundress with a parade of bunnies circling the skirt to a very revealing, very… erm… *formfitting*, shiny black leather minidress. Ranma didn't know where they had found it in the otherwise innocuous store. Her only comment about it was, however, a snide remark that she could wear it if she wanted to, while Akane "wouldn't be able to squeeze her wide hips in". That had the much-desired effect of ending the shopping trip, even if Ranma would've preferred to leave by his own power rather than being dragged out after being knocked unconscious by Akane's hyperdimensional mallet. 

A splash of hot water woke Ranma up. After a short argument with Akane – short only because Ryouga proved to be a remarkably good mediator – they started back to the dojo.

------------------

Ryouga found herself both cheered and depressed by the trip. On the one side, it was nice going out with people who actually acted like her friends, and not having to worry about getting lost simply walking into a room, and on the other it felt as if she were resigning herself to being a girl, something she had tried to die rather than doing. The only thing that kept her in a good mood was the knowledge that soon, as soon as she could convince them that she was in fact healthy, they would go looking for the cure. She knew that Ranma would help her, because it could possibly be a cure for his own curse.

So she took it with good humor when Kasumi herded her back into bed when she got back, and chided Ranma and Akane for keeping her out so long. No, rather than protesting she just nodded and headed back into the storage room, and examined at her reflection in the mirror for a long time.

She'd pulled her hair back into a ponytail to keep it out of her eyes, and was dressed in the other one of her old outfits that Kasumi had altered – only she hadn't finished, and the pants were untouched. They looked ridiculously baggy on her slender legs, and she'd had to roll up nearly a foot of each leg, but she approved of this more than the better-fitting set. With the pants like that, she had been able to tuck the shirt in so it didn't look like a short dress, and by making the top baggy around her chest, the combined changes hid a great deal of her figure. Now, if it weren't for the ridiculous color of her hair…

She unintentionally followed Kasumi's instructions and fell asleep sitting in front of the mirror, slumped forward with her forehead rested against its reflection.

---------------------

Keep a' goin', keep a' goin'… don't give up _now_!


	4. Guests at the Nekohanten

**_Chapter Three: Guests at the Nekohanten: The Entrance of Herb_**

Ranma walked right past the giant hole in the concrete wall without giving it much thought – at first. When it sunk in, her turned back and looked at it curiously. _Who… I know Ryouga didn't do that…_

He was about to leave, since whoever had done it was obviously long gone, when he spotted a familiar object on the ground. A black schoolbag of popular style, with a tiny stuffed animal hooked into the latch. _That's Akane's bag…_ He picked it up and started running back home. _Did Akane get attacked? Man, whoever did that was pretty strong…_

He rounded a corner and came upon another unusual sight. It was Mousse, pinned to the wall by his robes with dozens of tiny throwing knives and sobbing something about Shampoo. Ranma started removing the knives, but Mousse didn't even seem to notice until he fell heavily to the ground. 

"Hey, what happened to you, duck-boy?"

Mousse squinted up at Ranma, then remembered and lowered his glasses from his forehead to his eyes. "A boy assaulted me…"

"You're saying some kid did this to you?" Ranma asked incredulously. Mousse wasn't the best fighter but Ranma would have thought he could beat a child…

"I never realized you were such a pathetic weakling, Mousse," someone commented from behind Ranma.

"Ryouga?" Ranma turned to see that indeed, it was the Tendo's newest houseguest. "What are you doing here?"

"Akane hasn't come back yet," she explained, "So Kasumi sent me out to look for her."

"Akane hasn't come back yet?" 

"She must have been taken as well," Mousse interrupted.

"Taken?!"

"That boy… his speed was inhuman. I could barely see his movements… and to make my defeat even more humiliating, he took Shampoo!"

"Shampoo was kidnapped?" Ranma and Ryouga exclaimed in unison.

"So that's what's happened to Akane," Ranma mused. He showed them the bag. "I found this by a huge hole in a wall… whoever kidnapped her must have been pretty strong."

Mousse went on, "The boy left with Shampoo, talking quite casually with her. They went to the Nekohanten." 

Ranma and Ryouga both sweatdropped. Not much of a kidnapping…

"Let's get going, then…"

***

Akane was a little annoyed. A hurricane is also a little breezy, but she was, indeed, annoyed. She hadn't been doing anything, just hurrying home because Kasumi had asked her for a favor that afternoon, when all of a sudden this 'Lime' kid bashes a hole through the wall next to her and stutteringly asks her if she's a woman. Then he added injury to insult, crying about how this was his first time ever meeting a woman, and then announcing that he was going to touch her… that earned him a bashing with the trusty ol' mallet that he just brushed off as if it were nothing, and proceeded to sling her over his shoulder and carry her to the Nekohanten, kicking and protesting the entire way. What an undignified kidnapping, she thought angrily. She wasn't unused to the concept but this was the first time it had ever happened to her in such an embarrassing manner. Upon their arrival at the café, the boy said something about wanting to have tea when she was suddenly snatched away by a cloaked figure and tossed across the room, literally. She screamed for a moment as she flew through the air before coming to an abrupt stop.

Ranma wasn't expecting to walk into the Nekohanten, ready for another confrontation with the old ghoul Cologne, and end up catching Akane in the middle of her ungraceful flight out the door instead. He glared at the person who had done it angrily, but was ignored. 

"Lime. Mint. We are leaving," said the figure curtly as it started to brush past Ranma, ignoring him, and head out the door.

Ryouga, in the middle of asking Akane if she was alright, froze at the sound of that voice; it was female, but trying to speak in low male tones… Ranma started to say something, but she cut him of with an ice-cold voice so filled with barely contained anger that the entire café went silent. 

"It's you."

The cloaked figure turned to look at her slowly. "You!" it was said in a fierce, unbelieving whisper.

"After all this time… you just show up, out of the blue… Die!" With that cry, Ryouga swung a powerful punch at her adversary, which connected with her left shoulder. The counter to that attack, however, was a powerful uppercut that sent her flying up into the ceiling with a loud *crack*. She fell heavily to the ground, stunned from the pain.

"Ryouga!" Akane cried out almost involuntarily. The pink-haired girl's eyes were blank, but then she blinked, pupils reappearing, and groaned in pain. _She's still not healthy enough to fight!_

Luckily, Ranma stepped between the two. "You're Herb?" he asked, eyes narrow. This girl was not doing much to get on his good list… cursing Ryouga, tossing Akane across the room like a sack of potatoes… he was starting to get mad.

"Wait…" Ryouga had pulled herself up, and was leaning heavily on a table to steady her shaking legs. "Don't fight her, Ranma… she'll curse you too. See that bucket?"

Ranma noticed the object that the dog-eared boy was holding casually. "You mean… that's it?" the thought of what the innocuous object was capable of sent a shiver down his spine. Just the thought of it made him cautious about fighting.

Ryouga nodded. 

Herb smirked at Ryouga from within the dark folds of her cloak that was obviously meant to hide her femininity. Indeed, Ryouga didn't seem to be much of a challenge at the moment. "You are weak, woman…" she said, smugly. "If you want the Kaisufuu, you must defeat me first… and you have no chance of doing that." She started to leave, Mint and Lime following like the trained subordinates they were. 

_The Kaisufuu… Open Water Kettle… so that's the cure…_ "I will defeat you, Herb-woman, count on that!" she called after them before losing what unsteady balance she had and crumpling to the ground. 

There was a faint shout from outside: "Herb! You're a…" the voices trailed off into nothing before Ranma heard more than that, though.

"Ryouga! Are you alright?" Akane asked worriedly. "You really shouldn't have tried to fight…"

"I'm fine, Akane," she told her softly. "It wasn't much… he just surprised me…"

"That was the person who cursed you?" Ranma asked, and received an angry nod. "Okay. We'll get her, then, and that kettle, too…" _If it's a cure, I don't care what I have to do!_

Ryouga nodded in agreement and stood again, somewhat shakily but on her own. "Right. If you'll just help me train, Ranma…" 

"Right." _Me training with Ryouga? This'll be different, that's for sure._

Cologne decided to comment at this point. "I would not advise fighting Herb, future son-in-law."

"Why not?" Ranma couldn't keep the snide tone out of his voice, mostly because he didn't try to. 

Cologne just looked either amused or annoyed; no one could really tell on her wrinkled face. "Your friend seems to have… met Herb before but do you know who she is?"

Ranma just shrugged. "Somethin' called the Musk Dynasty, right? So?"

The matriarch's expression seemed to resolve itself in the amused direction. "They are not to be taken lightly. They are descended from a tribe of warriors who tried to master the Shokei Fist."

"Shokei Fist…" Akane murmured. Something about that sounded familiar… like from some old legend that she had been told as a child. 

Shampoo recognized it more clearly, though. "That the fighting style uses shapes and movements of animals, right?"

Cologne nodded. "They went deep into the mountains to study and train… adding the special nature and strength of animals to their arts." She paused, deep in thought. "But I feel they went too far when they tried to merge with animals."

"Merge?" Ryouga wondered aloud. A sick look came over her face as she started to realize what the ghoul meant. "Oh, please tell me that's not what they were doing…"

"After defeating a wild animal, the men of the Musk Dynasty would use the Nannichuan to change it into a woman and make it become their bride. Their descendants then inherited the traits of the animal," she explained bluntly.

Ryouga looked pale and ready to throw up. Akane was speechless with shock, and even Mousse and Shampoo, who had seemed to know the rest of the story, had shocked expressions at that revelation. 

"They did what?!" Ranma exclaimed, the only one able to speak. 

"Animals… for brides… that's what those bastards wanted…" Ryouga whispered. "I'll kill them!"

"They are people who inherited the powers of the wild beasts," Cologne continued, too deep in her narration to stop because of the interruptions. "They strength of the tiger, the speed of the wolf… and… as the next successor to the rulership of the Musk Dynasty, Herb inherited the blood of dragons. It is said that the royal family was the most powerful," she finished the story. "I had thought that they had died out, however…" she mused to herself quietly, but no one heard. 

"That… that asshole! I don't care if she's a dragon's descendant or a sea horse's!" Ryouga exclaimed, eyes dark and swirling with anger. If she hadn't been in so much pain, she would have displayed a battle aura. "I won't be defeated by her!"

"But, Ryouga," Ranma said, not happy about what he had to say, "You're not recovered yet." Seeing as how that's wouldn't stop her, he continued, "You can't do it by yourself, at least. I'll fight with you." _Besides, Herb was still female… that's means she's looking for the Kaisufuu. If we follow her, we'll find it as well… and if it can cure my curse…_

Ryouga looked grateful, but still angry. Ranma hoped that he could get the girl back into shape.

"I can assume, then, that your present… condition… is due to the effect of the Chiisuton?" At Ryouga's agreement, she continued. "Then you will be seeking the Kaisufuu as well."

Anger was snapped out by surprise and incredulous hope. "You mean… you know where it is?"

Cologne nodded. "Herb was seeking it as well. And you seem to know why…?"

Ryouga nodded, and gave a brief version of the story he had told Ranma, only leaving out exactly what his cursed form had been because of Akane's presence. Cologne knew, of course, so it didn't matter. 

She held out a rolled up piece of paper. "I will give you the map to the kettle, then, under one condition." Ryouga grabbed the scroll eagerly, but she held it firm. "You must deliver both the kettle and the ladle to me. They are powerful – and dangerous – artifacts."

Ryouga didn't know why the old ghoul would want the two items – probably just another 'find' for her collection, she was as bad with magical junk as Happosai was with panties - and didn't much care. Nodding agreement, she snatched the map away and scanned over it quickly. Ranma looked at it over her shoulder, still not trusting Ryouga with maps, not caring if that curse seemed to be cured or not. 

"It's in Japan?" he asked, surprised.

"Yes," said Cologne. "During China's turbulent history, it traded owners many times, eventually ending up in this country."

Ranma blinked. _Convenient…_

"Herb and the others came here seeking directions as well. I gave them that, but not the map."

"Lucky for us," Ryouga said dryly, rolling the map up. She seemed to have collected herself. She went to leave without another word, limping slightly. Ranma, after a brief hesitation, followed.

Akane was lost in thought. _There was something… odd about the story_, she thought to herself as she wandered out, _but I can't put my finger on it. I didn't know Ryouga was cursed… they implied that he got cursed there, right before Herb found him, but for some reason that doesn't seem right… now that I think about it, Ryouga *did* always avoid water… but if he was cursed before… why didn't he tell me?_ She walked back home, trailing the other two at a short distance but not really paying attention, following the familiar path mostly by instinct as she mulled over the mystery.

***

I have to put in an Author's note here… First of all, *big* thanks to the people of The New Ranma ½ Project. Most of this part came straight from the manga, with appropriate adjustments for my different plot; if it hadn't been for the translations I found there this story would quite likely never have existed. Thank you, arigato gozimasu! The New Ranma ½ Project can be found at http://www.techserv.curtin.edu.au/ranmascan/ . I can't recommend this site enough for anyone who hasn't read the latter volumes of the manga. ^___^ Ja!

~Mordain


	5. Part Two: The Chasing of the Kaisufuu

Disclaimer: The story may have changed parts, but I haven't changed my statement: I don't own Ranma ½. Although I wish I did.

*****__**

**_

Part Two: Chasing the Kaisufuu

_**

**_Prologue: Sad Goodbyes_**

Ranma knew better than to try and talk Ryouga out of leaving. True, the decision to help her train had been made on the spot, a snap decision, and seemed less realistic as things cooled down a little bit, but he could see the bright, slightly hysterical gleam in her eyes at the chance of a cure and knew that he'd be doing the exact same thing in her situation. The only thing he'd accomplish by trying to stop her would be to drive her out on her own. 

Akane didn't say anything either, having had experience with Ranma in the same situation and knowing that it was also an exercise in futility to ask to go along. So she didn't say anything but wish good luck to her fiancée and the person who'd been living with them for a week now.

She was expecting them to leave fearlessly, trouncing off into the unknown as was per usual for this sort of thing. She couldn't conceive of having predicted that Ryouga would freeze at the simple good-luck statement, turn around and look at her with large brown eyes that hadn't changed at all. 

She also wasn't expecting to have her cheek cupped suddenly in the other girl's hand.

"Akane…" Ryouga whispered. 

But by far what she was least expecting was to be suddenly kissed on the lips, gently but firmly, a brief hesitation and then it was over.

She felt a tear rolling down her cheek and for the life of her couldn't figure out why. "Ryouga…" she murmured brokenly, "I'm sorry…" __

Ryouga searched her eyes, but didn't seem to find what she was looking for. "Me too," she replied in a low voice before turning away. 

She could do nothing but watch the pair leave, silently other than half-hearted "'Bye" from Ranma, and think her thoughts that were caught into a frantic whirlwind that proved her outward shocked calmness a partial lie. /_A week of nothing, a week of avoiding the topic like the plague, and he does this out of the blue. I thought it wasn't so serious, he was so quiet… but then he's always been quiet since last week./ _She felt a sudden twist of self-hatred in her gut. /_That was a goodbye. He doesn't expect to come back from this, and probably doesn't want to, now. Akane, you've got a terrible habit of getting into these messes…/ _The single tear that she had shed dried.

***

~Mordain


	6. And the Beginning of a Journey

Disclaimer: I /still/ don't own it, and make no claims to the contrary. Geez, writing these is getting monotonous…

***

**_Part Two, Chapter One: The Beginning of a Journey_**

Ryouga was even more silent than usual as they began the first phase of their journey. She was lost in thought – or at least Ranma thought she was - so deeply that she would've gotten as hopelessly lost as usual if she hadn't been paying minimal attention at least to following him.  

Ranma felt oddly upset by what had happened. /_Am I jealous because he said it before me and kissed her today?/ _Some part of him, the part that he showed to the outside world, protested at the thought of being jealous of the 'tomboy', but he shoved that thought away. /_I know I get jealous of those guys who can just glibly proclaim their love, 'cause I can't do it even though it would… I don't know what would happen, but at least then she wouldn't think that I really hated her… I know I… feel *something* for Akane, but do I love her? Sometimes I think so, sometimes I wonder… And she always seems to hate me… well, not always but often enough that I can't figure her out. It doesn't help that everyone *expects* us to get married, either… everyone except the other people who want to marry one of us, anyway… but that's not much better!/_

They took the train out of the city, but not all the way to their destination even though they had the cash for it. They needed the time it would take to walk there to train, and with the map they figured it would be easy to beat Herb there even with just a small head start. They played cards to alleviate the mind-numbing boredom of the ride, but didn't talk much. At least not until Ranma couldn't take the silence anymore. It simply wasn't in his nature to keep so quiet for so long. And of course, with typical Ranma tact, he chose almost the most sensitive topic to speak about.

"So what was _that _all about?" he asked, drawing a card from the pile and glancing at it. /_Rats./_

Ryouga's expression darkened, but she only answered with a simple, "Tens?"

"No, go fish," he answered. "C'mon, Ryouga, at least talk to me here! You haven't said a word since we left." He watched Ryouga draw the card with a stoic expression on her face. "Eights?" 

The pink-haired girl handed over a card and her first non-game related words of the trip. "Why do you care?" she asked acidly. 

"'Cause I think I have a right to know why a girl just kissed my fiancée!" Ranma replied, a little more insistently than he meant to. "Sixes?" he asked, switching from the conversation to the game in a rush to cover up his error. 

"Go fish." Ryouga answered coldly.

Ranma winced inwardly at the tone. "Hey, look, I'm sorry, man…"

He was just cut off with a flat, "Kings."

Ranma shook his head. 

Ryouga drew a card, examined it briefly, and placed it in the middle of her fan of cards. "Did you say that because you're upset because she's your fiancée or because I was the girl who kissed her?" she asked in the same flat tone, not even a tinged with anger. That was more disquieting than if she'd screamed it in Ryouga's old fury, Ranma thought. "Well?"

Ranma looked down, examining his cards. "I… I don't know. But why'd you do it, anyway? You were never that forward before." Almost as an afterthought, he asked, "Jacks?"

Ryouga handed over a card. "I had to find out before I left. I don't know if I'm going to go back…"

Ranma flinched. /_I deserved that…/ _"What… what did you find out?" he asked, not needing to ask what the question was but half-afraid of the answer. 

"She doesn't love me," was the answer, finally said with a bit of emotion, a deep sadness.

"Sorry…" Ranma sympathized, and was surprised to find that he actually meant it. Of course, he had known that she didn't for a while… or at least assumed it, since Akane hadn't even known how Ryouga had felt until recently and probably hadn't even considered it before then. "But you haven't tried, have you? I mean, maybe…" he trailed off, feeling stupid. "Um… queens?" he asked, somewhat sheepishly.

"No," he was informed coldly. "Go fish."

"Anyway, what did you have in mind for training?" he asked, trying to keep some sort of a conversation going.

"Fives?" Ryouga asked before answering, but Ranma shook his head negative. "I was thinking of some speed exercises. I need to learn how to dodge the hits; I can't take them anymore…" 

Ranma nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that's what I was thinkin' too. At least, that's what works for me…" He considered his cards for a moment. "Um… fours?" 

"Go fish. Yeah, I was actually expecting of basing my training off of yours, since our forms seem to be so similar. Nines?" she tried, at a loss for what else to say.

"Hmm…" Ranma relinquished the card absently, seemingly caught in thought. "Well, beehives worked well enough, but I wouldn't recommend it… kinda painful…"

"Beehives?" she asked, mildly curious. Ryouga slipped the card into her hand and lifted one elbow unto the small table between their seats to rest her head in her free hand. /_I don't remember the last time I talked like this to anyone… much less Ranma! It seems weird… but it's not too bad, talking and not having to worry about guarding my words…/_

"Yeah, while you were doing your Bakusai Tenketsu training," Ranma continued, not noticing Ryouga's train of thought. "Pop would throw beehives at me to increase my speed. He didn't stop 'till I could knock out all the bees without being stung."

Ryouga winced sympathetically. "That sounds as bad as being smashed against boulders for hours on end. And at least the ghoul knew what she was doing – your old man must have made that up on the spot because it would've killed you easy if you had had an allergy to bee poison, or if the training had given you one." Such a simple – and obvious – idea, yet, from the surprised expression Ranma was giving her, one he hadn't considered.

"And getting smashed against boulder after boulder couldn't've killed *you*?" 

Ryouga's expression was serious as she answered, and from her words she was obviously putting some thought into it. "That was different. It was a test of how bad of a beating I could take, and I was tough enough to survive and get stronger from it. Besides, Cologne didn't want me dead – she wanted me alive, so I could beat you," she reasoned. "Even if I failed to learn the breaking point I would've gained enough from the training to have a better chance than without it. Genma had no control over the bees the way Cologne did the boulders. If you'd been allergic, the first hive would've killed you. That wasn't a matter of toughness or skill, it was sheer luck."

Ranma laughed humorlessly. "Remember you're talking about the same father who taught me the n…n…neko-ken." He was smiling, but it wasn't funny at all the way his fear made him unable to say the word correctly.

Ryouga just shook her head at the thought of that horrible idea. "Yeah…" she mused, more to herself than to Ranma. Suddenly she shook her head, and assumed a more attentive expression. "Threes?"

"Huh?" Ranma's mind took a few seconds to remember the game. "Oh, right… no. Go fish."

Ryouga did so, frowned, and put her cards down for a moment. "Well?"

"Well what?" 

"It's your turn."

"Oh… yeah…" He tried to remember what he had done the past couple of turns, but his mind kept wandering away from the game, and to what Ryouga had said about the beehives. It was such a simple thought, one that he should have realized at the time… but he hadn't. /_Why did I let the old panda do that? I knew about allergies like that… but I just kept training… why?/ _

Ryouga waited as Ranma stared blankly at his cards, but before his annoyance with the lengthy pause prompted him to ask again the train started to rumble, slowing down. The intercom buzzed to life and announced a name, making Ranma look up, startled, at the intrusion of foreign sound.

"That's our stop," he announced simply, and began gathering the cards together. 

"Right." 

***

They were the only passengers to get off at the tiny little town that was far enough outside of Tokyo to be pretty isolated. It seemed vaguely familiar to Ryouga – although most of Japan was vaguely familiar to the former lost boy – but no one recognized her, of course. She said nothing as they passed through, and Ranma was too occupied with getting them started off in the right direction to start up another conversation, and not inclined to anyway. The short conversation had bothered him more than he really liked. /_Such a stupid training idea… I guess I did it to win… I had to win… but why? Akane was the prize… but I didn't want her… am I that prideful that it makes me stupid? I never really thought about it before… wonder why?/_

He was distracted by a clap of thunder and sudden heavy rain. "Damnit!" she muttered to herself, not so much because the rain or the transformation but because of her stirring discontent with that train of thought. She didn't care for the way her thoughts were turning… luckily, the rain was enough of a distraction to snap her out of her introspective mood, which felt alien and uncomfortable, fitting her poorly and chafing at the corners. It just wasn't in Ranma Saotome's nature to doubt himself… or herself, such as it was.__

The two nearly identical girls continued on, heading towards a sizable forest that would provide some shelter and a place to train for a couple days until they moved on towards Horisan. Ranma adjusted the straps on her pack to allow for her shrunken height. /_Ryouga's taller than me now,/ _she thought, somewhat annoyed that the girl had the advantage of several inches on her in a similar situation. But they could still be mistaken for sisters. Ryouga had cut her hair short again the week that had passed, but though it was in the same style, even to the point of having the familiar bandannas holding the bangs away from her forehead, it still seemed different… limper, maybe. It was currently darkened from what rain had landed on it before she opened her umbrella, from its usual bright fuchsia into a deep near-purple that almost matched the soaked maroon of Ranma's. She extended the umbrella to share the cover a little too late to prevent Ranma from getting drenched, and continued on with an even more determined forcefulness to her step as if attempting to erase the feeling of the water falling from the sky. 

They didn't talk as they walked. The occasional crash of thunder was just enough to hinder conversation, and neither really felt like it anyway. Rain was not something that gave either particularly fond memories.

The thunderstorm proved to be violent but short, and had tapered off into a mild drizzle by the time they reached the forest, just in time to show off some of the beautiful shades of red and orange of the sunset. Ryouga heated up some hot water for Ranma on the little hot plate that she still carried around and they set up camp and started a fire to ward off the growing chill of the evening. 

Ranma looked over the choices of what they could cook for dinner. /_Hmmm… stew sounds good./_ He opened the dehydrated mix and started to prepare the it. It didn't look very appetizing, then again trail food rarely did. At least there was plenty, actually more than enough. And somehow there was more in Ryouga's pack than his; Ranma didn't quite understand how, as they were of the same size, but supposed that she had learned how pack efficiently from always wandering, never knowing when she'd be able to resupply, or whether she'd end up someplace with ready game. It was bit of a depressing thought to have while he cooked.

Ryouga came back from setting up her tent and they ate the meal together in silence. The night started to grow truly dark then, the only light was from the smallish fire, the stars, and the sliver of what was left of the moon. Ranma looked up at the stars, at a loss for anything else to do, and noticed with surprise that there was a small meteor shower. Several very small specks streaked by as he watched and then suddenly there was a larger one, so bright that dimmed the real stars at it shot past them. Ranma thought briefly that he should probably make a wish on it, but it was gone before he could. /_Ryouga would probably wish that he was cured,/ _he thought, and glanced over at the pink-haired girl. But she hadn't seen the star; she was staring intently at the fire as if it contained all the answers of the universe. Ranma looked back up at the sky and tracked the last few shooting stars and then just the placid sea of stationary ones. He preferred that peace to the chaotic energy of the fire. 

"Do you know the constellations?" 

_/Huh?/ _He turned to look at his friend, who had shifted her gaze from the fire to him but then flicked her eyes to the sky when he noticed her attention. "No, not really. Never bothered with that sorta stuff."

"Oh. I tried to learn them, once. I heard that they could help you navigate." There was a pause. "It didn't help, so I forgot most of it. But sometimes I would look at them anyway, and make up my own."

"…" To be honest, Ranma was a bit freaked by Ryouga's behavior. She was acting so calm… and, well, un-Ryougaish. /_Then again, every other time I talked to him he either wanted to defeat me, date Akane, or get a cure… and out of all the three he was nicest with the third. So he's acting like this 'cause I can help him get cured and he's so pissed at Herb he's puttin' off beating me./ _Satisfied with this rationale, Ranma looked back up at the stars and soon felt himself dozing off. 

If only the person who stayed awake, watching the fire die down to only glowing embers before finally sleeping herself, had such a clear-cut explanation. 

***

~Mordain 


	7. Training and Complications

Disclaimer: Nope, I'm not quite insane enough (yet) to think that I actually own them…

Notes: There's plot here. Trust me… What? Why do you look so disbelieving?

***

**_Chapter 5: Chasing the Kaisufuu Part 2 – Training and Complications…_**

Ryouga woke up with a start. _Wha… _she looked around the tent frantically, certain that something was terribly wrong. But found nothing, even though every instinct was screaming at her.

She slumped back down, the sudden rush of energy gone leaving her feeling tired even though her heart still pounded in her chest. _A dream. Just a dream… and I can't even remember what it was about. _But the feeling that something was horribly wrong remained. 

She got up after a few minutes, and stepped outside for some water. She stopped in her tracks when she saw the second tent in the clearing. _Who… oh, right, Ranma. _She felt a little embarrassed by her lapse in memory. _How could I have forgotten that?_

Ranma came out just a second later, obviously alerted by her own exit. "Want some breakfast?" he offered, holding out a plate. "I got up early," was quick excuse.

"Sure." She accepted the plate. Pancakes. Odd that Ranma would know a western dish, much less how to cook at all… but it was welcome. She could remember having breakfast on the trail, but usually just whatever was left from dinner the night before. She ate quickly and started the fire again.

Ranma looked at her quizzically. The morning was warm enough to do without. "To guide us back here," she explained, tossing a few more sticks on the fire. 

He almost pointed out that it was unnecessary, but decided to keep quiet. It couldn't hurt to keep a fire going. 

***

"Are you just going to stand there for the rest of your life, Saotome?"

Ranma glared at Ryouga, but the effect was somewhat diminished due to the medium-wide river that flowed between them. _She's doing this on purpose… _"Why do you want to train over there, anyway?" he called back.

"Because this is the best spot around!" Ryouga called from the large, sunny clearing on the opposite side of the river. "Besides, we'll be on a more equal footing this way. Now cross already! It's not very deep, just wide…"

Ranma scowled and stepped into the water, running across as fast as she could. She emerged on the other side a few minutes later, soaked up to her armpits in water. "Not very deep?" she said sarcastically. _An hour of searching, of course he had to find a way to get me wet…_

Ryouga shrugged, but the beginnings of a smile tugged at her lips. "It's not my fault you're shorter than me."

Ranma glared, and started to wring out her clothing. 

Her pink-haired counterpart listened to her mutter, amused, but couldn't pick out exactly what she was saying. Finally, Ranma had dried her clothing sufficiently and stood, swiping her hands together, and kicked to loosen wet fabric that still clung to her skin. Now recovered of some of her dignity, Ranma smirked at Ryouga and put her hands on her hips. "Whenever you're ready…" she said, making no move to attack or defend. 

Ryouga grinned darkly. "Whatever you say…" She reached up and pulled the umbrella off the top of her pack, then let it slip off of her shoulders while she assumed a defensive stance, a little awkwardly with the heavy weapon, though.

Ranma noted how the umbrella unbalanced her opponent and frowned. "I don't think you should use that, but…" she shrugged, then, without any other warning, rushed forward to attack. Ryouga swung to deflect her, but she had predicted that and jumped up, out of the way of the horizontal slash, and landed on a tree limb to watch what she had predicted would happen.

Ryouga, having seen Ranma jump just exactly too late for her to do anything about it, had tried to stop, but this only had the effect of changing the arc's direction to almost straight down, and Ryouga was dragged to the ground. "Ouch…" She groaned at the unexpected pain. That had never happened before…  

Ranma hopped down. "Y'okay?"

Ryouga pulled herself to her feet and nodded. "Yeah, but… what just happened?"

Ranma tried to explain. "You tried to stop, didn't you?" at Ryouga's agreement, she went on, "but you lost a lot of mass in that body, not to mention a lot of sheer strength. You can still use the umbrella, but… unless it hits something solid, it just won't stop. And when you tried… well, all you could do was change it's direction."

The pink-haired girl gave the offending weapon a vicious glance. "I guess I'd better leave it alone then…" She took an unarmed stance. "But don't underestimate me, Ran - _ma_!" The second syllable of the name became her battle cry as she charged forward.

Ranma grinned as she dodged, but the smile was quickly replaced with a look of concentration. The two pseudo-girls fought at speeds that often made their outlines blur, a fast-paced dance of attack and dodge, defend and leap. Ryouga still wasn't anywhere near her top form, and Ranma had to hold back more than usual and even so had a clear advantage; but the sparring had the effect she wanted. It warmed both of them up, and let her correctly access Ryouga's strength. Unlike her male body, Ryouga's strengths now seemed to be in her speed and her feet; her arm muscles had weakened, but her legs were not nearly as atrophied, and when one of her kicks connected, Ranma felt it. 

"Good, good…" she muttered under her breath, not talking so much as merely allowing her thoughts to spill over into speech; she wasn't even conscious of it. Ryouga was starting to adjust more… is was obvious that she hadn't fought much since transforming, if at all other than that one miserable failure… but now she was starting to realize that she had strengths as well as weaknesses and exploiting them. Her confidence almost visibly improved, as well.

After about ten minutes (a good length, Ranma thought), Ryouga began to slow down, obviously tired. Ranma stopped. "Not bad," she commented. "Not as good as me, but then… ack!" her legs were suddenly not supporting her anymore as Ryouga stopped her bragging with an unexpected foot-sweep. She fell to an undignified heap on the ground, and Ryouga laughed. 

"What were you saying, Ranma?" she asked innocently, but the effect was ruined by the smirk she just couldn't hide. "I couldn't quite hear you…" she couldn't hold it in anymore and burst out laughing again. 

Ranma eyes narrowed, and with a lightening-fast motion grabbed the distracted girl's arm and pulled her to the ground. After a little bit of struggling, the redhead had her rival in a firm headlock. "As… you… were… saying… Ryou… ga?" she said, squeezing her neck a little with each word. 

Ryouga gagged dramatically and clutched at Ranma's arms, trying to loosen them, but to no effect. Then she tried something else, flailing with her leg that wasn't pinned, managing to knee Ranma in the chest through sheer luck. 

It worked, and Ranma let go, crawling away and rubbing where she had been kicked. "Okay, okay… truce then…" She stood and dusted herself off. "Not bad, Ryouga."

"Not bad yourself. Been a while since anyone's gotten me in a headlock…"

"I imagine." 

They both started laughing at that point, from the unbelievability of it all. _If I didn't know any better, I'd say that we were acting like friends…_

***

Ranma made Ryouga take a break – she seemed insulted by the idea that she was tired, though – and reached into Ryouga's bag for something to eat on, she was feeling hungry. She had to rifle through several of the pouches to find something suitable, though, and found one that was open and full of water. She scooped the liquid out and looked inside it, hoping whatever it was hadn't been damaged, but found it empty. She suddenly got a very bad feeling about it…

"Ryouga," she asked, "what was in here?" she indicated the correct compartment. 

"Was?" Ryouga said, startled. "It's missing?" She looked at which pouch it was, thought for a moment, and suddenly paled. "Oh no…" 

Ranma didn't like that answer. "What was it?" 

"The map…"

Ranma's heart sank. "You mean we're lost!?"

"…and most of our money," she finished gloomily.

Ranma buried her head in her hands. "Oh, crap_._"

***

TBC…

Oh jeez, I can't believe it… that scene was *a lot* less serious than I thought it would be… well, at least I changed the worst of it… (trust me, this is a _good _thing, a very _very_ good thing indeed… ^_^;;;;;;)

(see, I told you there was plot… I couldn't make their trip _easy_, now could I?)

~Mordain (who just recently found out where her name is from, and had honestly thought that it was semi-original when she thought of it…) 


	8. Lost, Again, In More Ways Than One

Disclaimer: Nope. Still don't own 'em. Sorry if this disappoints you, folks…

Notes: None yet… 

***

**_Chapter Six: Chasing the Kaisufuu Part 3 – Lost, Again, In More Ways Than One_**

Several hours of nearly-futile searching later, they had only managed to recover a handful of coins and a bedraggled piece of paper that they could only assume had once been their map from the bottom of the river. It was quite late in the afternoon when they finally gave up and started back to their camp to decide what they were going to do. 

"So what are we going to do now?" Ryouga asked morosely, holding the ruined map near the fire in an attempt to dry it out and perhaps make it near-readable again. 

Ranma finished counting the coins they had found. "1450 yen. Not much… but we shouldn't need more, if we're careful. And we can ask around… someone's bound to know where Horisan is, even if it's not marked on any of the normal maps. I think I know the general direction…"

Ryouga shook out the map one last time and spread it out on a flat rock near the fire. It was dry, but all that she could make out was a vague wash of black ink faded to gray that got darker in a few spots - nothing readable. Irritated, she tossed it aside. The pain she had almost forgotten about had come back, stabbing her sharp in the stomach… she resisted the urge to wince and rubbed her forehead again, where the beginnings of a headache were forming. "But what if we _don't_ find it?" she whispered, only half speaking to Ranma. "What if we just get lost – I _always _get lost – and we never make it? What if Herb finds it before us and takes it back to wherever they came from?" Her words grew louder and louder as she continued, until she was screaming into Ranma's face, shaking him by the collar. "What if I'm stuck like this forever! I don't want to be a girl forever! I don't _want _to ever have to be like this again, with this body, with these…" she suddenly cut off, in the middle of her shout.

Ranma was so frozen in surprise that it took her a few seconds to realize that Ryouga was crying, and then had an armful of girl when Ryouga collapsed forward, sobbing into her chest. Awkwardly, Ranma patted her shoulder, trying to calm her down. _That was sudden… _yet somehow, when she thought about it, she wasn't all that surprised. Surprised that Ryouga was crying like this, but not really too shocked over the fact that she had had this outburst. In a way it was actually better than the quiet.

"Damnit… now I'm even acting like a girl…" the words were muffled. But she didn't stop sobbing against Ranma's shirt, which was already soaked from her repeated divings into the river. 

"Ryouga… I -" she didn't finish the statement. _I what? I… I… I won't let you stay like this? How can I promise something like that? I don't *know* that Herb hasn't already gotten the kettle and left with it… and if even the old ghoul didn't know where they were from, I doubt that anyone else does… _she felt her own heart sinking as she considered their admittedly dismal prospects. Without the map it would take them that much longer to reach the mountain, giving Herb a good chance to beat them there and simply leave… and they only knew the name of the mountain, not the specific location. There was no guarantee that anyone would know it… 

"I'll try my best…" was all she eventually offered. It was all she really could say.

***  
Ryouga pretended to sleep. She wasn't sure if she had actually fooled Ranma or not, but she couldn't bring herself to stop pretending, and have to face *him*. Not after embarrassing herself like that. _What's wrong with me? _But whether Ranma was just letting her pretend to be asleep or if he was actually fooled, he let her sleep. He had even carried her into her tent, after changing himself back from herself, and covered her up with more blankets than the comfortably warm evening required. Ryouga supposed it was her own fault, but she just hadn't been able to stop shivering. Even though she wasn't cold.

She just stared at the ceiling of the tent. Sleep was impossible. She didn't even consider actually trying to get some obviously much-needed rest, such was her agitation. She watched the ceiling of the tent – an insubstantial barrier if ever there was one – her mind going in circles too fast for its own good. 

Why did I do that? Why am I acting like a girl? I'm not a girl, damnit! I'm a guy! I love Akane. As soon as I get cured… when I get cured… *if* get cured… but what if I don't? Ranma said he would help. Ranma always thinks he can do anything. But he can't… or can he? He could always beat me… he could always beat *everyone*. Except Akane. He always let her win… I don't think she could beat him really, but she never missed with the mallet or table or whatever… did he let her hit him? Why? Could it be that he really loves her? They never act as if they love each other… but… there are a lot of times when… But why? Why would he love her? He's got so many other girls who aren't as in so much denial as Akane… if she loves him of course and I'm not saying that she does… who would be so happy to be with him… and I can't really blame them, I mean they all have reasons and he's not that bad a guy… they could do worse for themselves. Good-looking… pretty handsome, actually, although a jerk, of course. He doesn't always act like that, though… like today. He didn't just push me away, he listened and tried to help… well, he didn't actually help much but he tried, in a bumbling cute sort of way. But he always has to act so macho. Like he doesn't care. And it hurts everyone, can't he see? He can't be nice to Akane… he doesn't deserve to be with Akane. Ukyou would be a good person for him. She obviously likes him, heck, she followed him for ten years trying to get revenge and then did an emotional one-eighty when he told her she was cute. Okay so maybe she's not the most stable of persons. As if I'm one to talk. I followed him for… hated him so badly for how long? Three? Four years? Geez, I can't even remember. That's not a good sign. And now I've done the same thing… gone from hating him to… to… to lo-

She sat up, eyes wide with shock at the directions her thoughts had gone. Wait! What the HELL am I *thinking*?!? The tent wobbled slightly from the forcefulness of her movement, but stayed upright. I do *not*… an image of Ranma flitted past her mental eye and she groaned. Damnit… this is why I need to get that cure NOW… damn *damn*… 

She flopped back down unto her back. Her headache was growing again. And, because misery loves company, the pain in her stomach came sharp and suddenly back again, worse now than it was even at the beginning. The combined pain made her eyes unfocus and she curled up into the tightest, smallest fetal ball she could manage, anything to lessen it. But it had one good effect, good in her opinion at least – it stopped the thoughts and blurred the memory. Eventually she fell asleep, even if it wasn't restful.

***

AN: Yay! Chapter Six is finally done! Wow… I'm still kind of in awe about this. I was so totally dead on this story… it wasn't even funny. But all good things must continue and this chapter just wrote itself! Yay! And the plot's finally behaving again! Ph33r my stream-of-consciousness-writing skillz. Oh, and I hope that this chappie doesn't worry anyone (this is in reference to a possible Ranma/Ryouga pairing), but I make no promises except that things won't be all sunshine and roses no matter which way it comes out… Oh, and review me! I finally posted another chapter… review or else! (not really, except that the rest of it will come out more slowly. *shrug*) Ja!

~Mordain


	9. Backtracking and Making Forward Progress

Disclaimer: You know the drill by now. At least I hope you do, but if you don't you're hopeless. Go get help. I don't own Ranma ½, damn you all!

Warning: Erm… eheheh… ^^;;; well… 

Alternate title (joke): The Wonders Of The Almighty Mood Swing

*** 

**_Chapter Seven: Chasing the Kaisufuu Part 4: Backtracking and Making Forward Progress_**

"Ryouga? You awake?"

The words intruded on her consciousness, followed too quickly by a sudden beam of bright sunlight that stabbed her eyes even through closed lids.

"Go 'way…" she mumbled, turning away from the sound and the light and cuddling deeper into the warm softness of her blankets.

"C'mon, you have to get up eventually."

Ryouga scowled through the haze that was sleepiness. "No I don'…" Despite her attempts, though, she could feel herself coming awake. It was almost painful.

Ranma sighed. "It's after noon, Ryouga… we've gotta get moving."

Awake now – somewhat, anyway, and heartily wishing she wasn't at all – Ryouga sat up, and cracked her eyes open in the direction the voice was coming from. "Go. Away." She said clearly, holding the blankets around her against the cold that seemed to exist with their absence.

"I promised I would do everything I could to help you, and I count this as helping." With only that warning, he snatched the blanket out of her grip to quickly for her to stop him. 

"Ranma you-" she was cut off when suddenly the blanket was tossed back in her face. "Hey! What was _that _for?" she yelled, voice muffled. She could hear the sound of Ranma frantically backing out of her tent, hurriedly closing the entrance behind him. "Jerk…" She pulled the blanket off her head and scowled uselessly at his incoherent answer. Then she noticed something on the blanket, and looked down with a sinking feeling in her heart. Sure enough, a bright crimson stain had appeared overnight, spotting her blankets and ruining the pants that she had slept in. "Oh, shit…" she moaned, burying her head in her hands.

***  
  


Her face was still flushed with embarrassment when she finally stepped out of her tent nearly an hour later, having changed and washed with a bucket of cold river water they'd brought up the previous day. Ranma at first didn't turn to greet her; he seemed occupied with stirring something in a bowl, probably lunch. 

She sat down on a stone near the almost-dead fire, eyes downcast.

Suddenly something landed in her lap. It was a clear plastic bottle, full of some sort of faintly tinted liquid. She looked up. "What's this?"

"A kind of medicine," he explained quietly, not quite looking at her.

"Medicine…?" then realization dawned. "Oh." She drank it. It tasted bitter, not at all pleasant, but she managed to get it all down. "Where'd you get the recipe?"

Ranma sat down next to her. "A little village in China," he answered, still speaking softly. "The weather had been really damp, and I'd been stuck as a girl for – long enough. I hadn't had the curse very long, though; at least, not long enough to have accepted it yet…" He paused, smiling ever so slightly for some unknown reason. "But long enough… well, let's just say that pop wasn't in the greatest of shape at that time… Anyway, a little old lady at the village took pity on me, for being stuck with only my father… she took that as the reason for why I didn't know how to be a girl very well, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that I really wasn't. She gave me the medicine, and taught me how to prepare it," he finished slowly, trailing off rather than actually ending the story. 

"…" Unwillingly, a the corners of Ryouga's mouth curved upwards ever so slightly. She felt relaxed… she'd never realized how pleasant Ranma's voice could be, when he was just talking for the sake of speaking and she was just listening, uncritically for a change. 

They sat together in silence for a little while. Ryouga could feel the medicine begin to work. Her mood was lightened considerably; she'd been embarrassed, but of course Ranma had understood; he was one of the few people who could, she reminded herself… 

Unbeknownst to her, the medicine, which consisted of a mixture of powered herbs dissolved in water, was also a rather powerful antidepressant, something she'd been in dire need of for a while. She could feel her head clear, as if the sun had finally broken through the clouds of gloom that were perpetually hovering over her head. She ate a bit of leftover breakfast that Ranma offered her, and the cure was complete; she was finally feeling normal, healthy again. She stood abruptly. 

"We should get going." She announced more loudly than was really necessary for Ranma – who was, after all, sitting not two feet away – to hear, but it felt important to make the statement clearly, as if it were not merely an option, or a suggestion, but rather a definite course of action. 

Ranma smiled to himself, being careful that Ryouga didn't see. "Right," he agreed, standing as well. "Where should we go, then? The town we passed through earlier, or the one just a few miles ahead?" 

Ryouga, who had already started to dismantle her tent, paused for a moment to consider the question. "The one we've already been to," she decided. "We know where that one is. We _don't _want to get lost."

"Right." _She's a lot better now, _Ranma considered, as he began to pack his own belongings. He offered a silent thanks to the old woman, directing his gratitude upwards. He hadn't mentioned it, because it hadn't been necessary, but she had died during the week that he had stayed at the village. He suddenly wished that he was more religious. 

Ryouga, having taken the time to bury the ruined things, took longer than Ranma to get ready, but soon they were back on the familiar road, walking it in reverse this time. It was a pleasant day, and Ryouga actually enjoyed herself. She chatted with Ranma this time; not any important topics, just whatever came to mind as something worth saying aloud. And in the numerous long pauses, she thought. Her thoughts were rather leisurely, not rushing in useless circles like they had the night before. 

She looked up at Ranma, who didn't notice the attention. _I never really knew him as well as I thought after all… I guess the rivalry thing never let us actually be friends, although we were, sort of. So I guess it's only natural that I would begin to *like* him… I mean, he's acting pretty nice, and he is one of the few people who can really know what I'm going through… _she turned her gaze, moving her eyes to the horizon in the other direction instead. Her eyes didn't quite focus on it, though. _It doesn't mean anything; I don't think that's I'm really attracted to him, at least… I hope not, though he is actually kind of cute… if I don't manage to get the cure, he wouldn't be the worst choice I could make to… _She shook her head violently. There was no way that she would ever… even if she *was* a girl – _woman, eventually_, her mind reminded her – for the rest of her life. _Besides, _she thought with an involuntary hint of sadness, _he's already taken by far to many others for another one to be more than just a problem, if anyone even took me seriously. Which they wouldn't. _

***  
  


"Horisan?" the shopkeeper scratched his head. "Sorry, can't say as I've ever heard of it…" 

"Thanks anyway…" They said it in unison, having practiced the routine with most of the rest of the population of the little town. Ryouga picked up the small bag of items they had bought and tossed it into the top of her backpack as the walked out, crumpling up the little sketch they had made of Herb and her companions as well. No one had recognized it, probably because the two of them were pretty terrible artists. No one had even recognized the name of their destination, either; well, everyone except for that one old man who, besides being mostly deaf, had also seemed largely senile.   

Ryouga pulled the map of the region that they had bought out and opened it as they found a bench and sat down. They looked over it for a few minutes. After a little bit of thinking, Ranma pointed to a ridge of unnamed hills to the west and north of them. "I think that that's the general location that the map let us to," he said, sounding a little uncertain. "I think…" 

Ryouga looked at where he was pointing. "That seems about right," she agreed. "It's a pretty large area, though…"

Ranma pointed to a nearly invisible dot and pair of kanji that marked and named a spot near the picture of the hills. "There's a little farming village there," he explained. "It wasn't on the other map, I guess 'cause it's new, and it's a little out of our way, but it's right next to the hills. If there's anything resembling a mountain there, they should know about it."

"I guess…" Ryouga sighed, and began to close the map. She folded it all wrong, of course.

Ranma plucked it away from her, and arranged it so that only their current location and their destination were visible at each corner of the front square of the map that he created. 

"Showoff." 

Ranma just smirked in response.

Ryouga rolled her eyes at that and yawned independently of it. It wasn't late, really, just late afternoon, but they'd been working straight for the last few hours… suddenly she spotted a sign, and grinned.

Ranma followed her gaze, and his own fell a little. "Oh no, we're not…"

"Please?"

Ranma hesitated, then tried another approach. "We hardly have any money left…" 

"So?"

Ranma looked back and forth between the sign and Ryouga. Between the lure of the establishment she had pointed out and her unintentionally cute, pleading expression, he felt his resolve crumble.

"Okay…"

She just grinned, and practically dragged him to the bathhouse. 

"You are such a pervert…" Ranma whispered to her as the paid at the counter. 

She just made a face at him. "It's not like I have much choice in the matter," she retorted, heading off to the girl's side with her bucket tucked under one arm and a towel slung over her shoulder. Oddly enough, she felt like whistling.

***  
  


AN: Sorry about that first part… eheheh… I tried to keep it as tasteful as I could, really I did… and I think I succeeded, if I may be so bold as to assume such… (and if anyone complains that there's a discrepancy, I'm more than willing to explain, although I seriously doubt you /want/ me to…)

I just couldn't resist the last part of this one… I mean, c'mon… you knew it /had/ to happen… 

O_o… why does inspiration in one fic invariably mean writer's block in the other? I suppose I should be glad I'm getting anything done at all, I guess… and since this seems to be my most popular Ranma fic (other than maybe WLB, which isn't /really/ serious, not like this one at least), I suppose working on this one is a good thing. 

Anyway, before I talk your eyes off I'll say:

Ja!

~Mordain


	10. A Short Break From the Chase

Disclaimer: *sigh*… people people people… if I owned Ranma ½… I wouldn't be writing fanfiction! I'd be writing the real thing! *sigh…* Some people…

AN: A pointless, fluffy chapter. If you're looking for deep plot and well-thought-out character development, don't look here. But it's a nice fluffy chapter… (the title should tell you that much)

Alternate title (not a joke, I almost called it this): Some R&R for R&R

***

**_Chapter Eight: A Short Break From The Chasing of the Kaisufuu_**

Ranma leaned back against the wall of the hot water pool and sighed, closing his eyes. As much as he'd tried to protest their coming to the public bathhouse, he was certainly glad they had. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been able to relax at one; it was far too easy of a place for his curse to cause him trouble, normally. But the only person here who even knew who he was, much less knew about his curse, was Ryouga, and she was on the other side of the wall that separated the women's side from the men's. 

This bathhouse wasn't nearly as modern or glamorous as the one in Nerima, he reflected, but it was still quite nice. _And cheaper, too, _the frugal portion of his brain commented. Finding a pair of crumpled thousand-yen bills at the bottom of Ranma's backpack had been a streak of luck, to say the least.

Of their own accord, his eyes cracked open ever so slightly, and he looked in the direction of the wall that had female voices coming from the other side. He hoped Ryouga would be okay over there…  

_Of course she will, _his rational brain told him. _She doesn't have to worry about hot or cold water, after all – not like you. _

Ranma re-closed his eyes and wriggled a little against the tiles of the side of the bath, trying to find a more comfortable spot. _She'll do fine, _he assured himself. _After all, she was the one who wanted to come here in the first place – and she seemed much better today then yesterday. I hope she wasn't faking it, though… like she was last week. It's obvious, thinking back, that she wasn't feeling as well as she pretended to. I should've expected it – after all, this *is* Ryouga we're talking about. She wouldn't want to show weakness, not to me for sure. And with – well, this should help. It sure is relaxing… _he sighed contentedly.

***

Ryouga wasn't nearly as calm. She had managed to delay actually entering the bath by stretching out her stop at the restroom – although that had been a traumatizing experience in and of itself - but now she was standing in front of the door with the large kanji for 'woman' painted neatly on it, and her confidence had fled in terror. It took a few minutes, but eventually she reminded herself that there was no point in having come at all if she didn't bathe, and opened the door. 

Even though she'd gotten over nosebleeding at the sight of female skin, she still had to force herself into a regular breathing pattern to steady her heart rate and prevent a fainting spell. Once she had managed to relax, though, she found that it actually wasn't all that bad. There weren't very many other people there, and none of them paid her much attention as she undressed and washed, although she could feel a few of them spare her a curious glance. 

Finally it was over, and she lowered herself into the water with a sigh of relief. The warmth soaked into her – she hadn't realized how cold she had been until she was suddenly warm again. She breathed deeply, letting the almost too-hot vapors complete the infusion of heat into her body and her eyes slide closed.

The remarkably simple motion made everything change for the better. Uncertainty faded away; now that she couldn't see anyone, she could pretend she was alone. Conversation was a low buzz, overshadowed by the roar of the water recalculation system of the giant tub. She sighed, settling further down to relax. 

Suddenly a stream of cold water hit her squarely on the nose.

"What the…" she sputtered, opening her eyes again to see who had done that. A little girl, maybe ten years old, stood waist-deep in the water in front of her, holding a small, bright green plastic water gun. Ryouga blinked at her. _Wha…_

"Sorry…" the little girl mumbled in apology, belatedly hiding the water gun behind her back as she did so. But she didn't move. After a moment of just staring at Ryouga unnervingly, she finally blurted out, "I like your hair."

Ryouga absently touched her hair. "Um… thank you…"

"It's pretty," the girl went on, less bashfully now. "Pink's my favorite color." When Ryouga didn't answer, the little girl went on. "How'd you get pink hair?"

Ryouga was at a loss for what to say, but answered anyway. "That's just the way it happened."

"Oh." The girl seemed to consider that for a moment, and pulled a lock of her own black hair forward to examine it. "I wish mine was pink." The she looked up at Ryouga and examined her more critically. "You should grow your hair longer. And that headband clashes."

_Fashion advice from a little girl… only you, Ryouga, only you would get that… and take it halfway seriously, at least… _She pulled off her bandanna before she could think better of it. "You think so?" she answered, just to humor the child. 

"Well," she answered, little face set in a serious, thoughtful expression, "it's okay short. But it's much better without the headband."

"Bandanna," Ryouga corrected absently, pushing the clinging wet locks out of her face. She ran a hand through the mop of hair to adjust it to existence without something to hold it back. She was doubtful of the possible success of that tactic, but it didn't fall in her eyes again. 

The girl's face crinkled in confusion. "What?"

"Bandanna," Ryouga repeated more slowly, unfolding said object to show her.

She reached for it hesitantly, examining it closely when Ryouga relinquished it. "Bandanna," she repeated, looking at it's never-repeating pattern of fused squares curiously. "It's kinda pretty," she finally admitted. "But it doesn't look pretty with your hair."

"Really? Well, I know it looks ok with black hair…" On a whim, Ryouga took back the bandanna, folded it up again, and tied it around the child's head, being careful to keep the knot loose. Then she leaned back and made a show of judging how it looked on her. To her surprise, she could see that now, with her bangs pushed away from her face, the girl's eyes weren't black like they had seemed, but rather deep blue with pupils outlined with a circle of reflected yellow-gold from the bandanna. "It looks pretty with your eyes," she finally told the apprehensive-looking girl. 

"Really?" her entire face lit up, and she touched the bandanna nervously. "Can I…" she trailed off, nervous about asking the question.

Ryouga nodded. "You can have it." _I've got dozens more, what does just one matter? _

Suddenly the girl hugged her tightly, then jumped away, blushing slightly. "Thank you, miss…" she said politely, bowing awkwardly in the water that was a little too deep for her. She was practically glowing. "I promise I'll take good care of it, and not let Kenji-ani steal it."

"Well," Ryouga told her seriously, "Tell your older brother that if he takes it, Ryouga Hibiki will take it right back from him."

She nodded furiously, smiling. "Is he /your/ big brother?"

Ryouga hesitated for a moment, but when she started to answer, there was a loud call from the other side of the room. "Megumi-chan! Where are you?"

The girl whirled at the sound of the voice. "I'm here, mom!" she called.

An older woman, wrapped in a towel, rushed into their view. "Oh, heavens, Meg-chan, don't frighten me like that. We're leaving soon, get ready to go."

"Yes mom." The girl scurried out of the water. Before running off, though, she turned back to Ryouga. "Thank you…"

Ryouga's lips turned ever so slightly upwards. "You're welcome," she whispered softly back as Megumi rushed off, calling excitedly after her mother.

***  
  


Ranma sneezed and rubbed his nose irritably. Why was it so unavoidable… even when he was by himself… even when he was miles and miles away from Nerima… that no matter what he tried, /someone/ would always get him with cold water? He sneezed again. He'd managed to change back before everyone saw him, luckily, but it had still been embarrassing as hell – he wasn't in Nerima anymore, where no one was surprised by anything anymore; he was lucky not to have been thrown out for the uproar that had been caused. _Damn that little kid and his stupid water gun! Why couldn't he at least have filled it with *warm* water?_ Ranma sneezed a third time, shivering in the relative cold of the bathhouse lobby. There were no benches, although he really wanted to sit down, so he had had to compromise by leaning up against the wall, clutching his bucket angrily under one arm. Well, as angrily as one could hold anything that contained a bar of soap, a small bottle of shampoo, a washcloth, and a rubber duck. 

Yes, a rubber duck.

It was a reluctantly accepted gift from the younger brother of the older boy who had shot him with the cold water. He had been assured that it had originally belonged to the older brother – he had been insistent about that, telling Ranma the crucial information in quiet, fierce whispers. The little boy, who couldn't have been more than six years old, hadn't understood what had happened or why Ranma was so upset, but he had given Ranma the duck to apologize anyway. _And to irritate his brother, _Ranma had assumed. 

So now Ranma was the slightly embarrassed possessor of a rubber ducky. What he was going to do with it, he had no idea, but he couldn't bring himself to just throw it away. 

He slumped further down against the wall. _What's taking so long?_

It was if he had summoned her, because all of a sudden Ryouga appeared again, looking rather pleased with herself. He glanced at her with no particular expression, but he couldn't totally erase the remnants of the cross look he had worn while waiting. Ryouga raised an eyebrow in response, not understanding the reason for his apparently upset mood.

"Took you long enough."

"You could've taken longer yourself, y'know."

"Whatever. Let's go."

Ranma turned away. Ryouga flashed him an annoyed look that just bounced harmlessly off of his back. _Don't think I've changed that much, Ranma… hey, wait a minute, is that a rubber ducky?_

***

TBC…

AN: 'Kenji-ani': My older brother Kenji.

Sorry for the fluffy chapter, but I think the story needed it. Don't worry, we'll get back to the plot next chapter. I know what's gonna happen – and I'll warn you in advance that I'm a cruel, cruel person – I just gotta write it out now. Ja!

~Mordain


	11. Random Encounters Are The Spice Of Life

Disclaimer: I still don't own Ranma. But when I take over the world, it will be mine! Oops. Forget I said that. *grins cheerfully*

AN: Ah, back to actual plot. I skipped some time *gasp, horror!*, but OH WELL! I don't think that you want more plotlessness; there's already been plenty of that in this fic, ne? 

***

**_Part Two, Chapter Six: Random Encounters are the Spice of Life_**

_Crack. _Ryouga's hand came down, striking the log of firewood with a simple motion, a single-fingered poke that hardly seemed capable of anything. It fell into eight perfect pieces, a feat that had made the manager blink with surprise when he had first seen it. He hadn't shown as much reaction when Ranma had repeated the feat. He _had_ used the full side of his hand rather than just a single finger, after all…

To tell the truth, Ryouga wasn't very happy with the situation. Their plan hadn't worked, obviously, and they'd gotten lost. Ryouga really wished that she'd committed the map to memory better, but she really hadn't been expecting to lose it. Loss of money, too… that hadn't helped, in fact had proven to be more of a problem than either of them had realized it would be. Of course, the fact that most of the food in Ryouga's pack had been waterlogged at the same time the map and money had been lost had been a major flaw in their plan. She berated herself one last time for overlooking that. So now they had managed to get a temporary job at a hot springs resort they had luckily stumbled unto in the middle of nowhere, filling a few empty spots. Ryouga was bored out of her mind.

Ranma glared at her when he passed by, lugging a basket full of laundry. Originally he had been the one chopping firewood, but then the manager had decided to switch them. Ryouga wasn't really sure why. 

_Crack_. Ryouga swept up the thirty or so thin logs that had accumulated and placed them in the correct pile. Occasionally another one of the workers at the resort would come by and pick up a wheelbarrowfull – every time seeming shocked, and a bit disappointed, that there was actually enough to constitute a load. He'd tried starting conversations with Ryouga several times to delay his return, but they always fell flat. Ryouga just didn't seem to have much to say. He was nice enough, but obviously frustrated. Clearly he wasn't used to someone so efficient with the job of chopping wood, and was used to having a break. 

Ryouga could see the steam rising from behind the barricades that blocked off the hot spring. Strangely enough, she almost wanted to go for a dip, although she knew that the hot water would be useless. Pausing for a moment, she looked away from the springs back into the forest that surrounded the resort. It was full nighttime, not very late but still quite dark. She could hear the sounds of animals, and relaxed. Wilderness was nice, as was solitude, she was remembering. Although this was different from anything before.

She heard the sound of the person who carried away the chopped logs settling down next to the building, a good ten feet away. With a little thought Ryouga recalled his name – Akira.

"You didn't finish, thanks," was all he said when Ryouga glanced in his direction to confirm who it was.

"Welcome."

Ryouga reached for another log and tapped it at the correct breaking point without hardly concentrating. The Bakusai Tenketsu was one skill, at least, that she had discovered to be as powerful as ever, even when she was at her weakest. Probably because it had nothing to do with physical strength. She tossed the resulting pieces into the wheelbarrow, which was rolled away a few moments later in silence. 

Ryouga sighed, and grabbed another log.

_Crack._

***

Ranma tossed towels into the basket with well-placed shots over his back. He was just basic cleaning crew for the men's side of the springs and about a third of the hotel itself, a mindless but easy job. He tried to do most work at the springs itself when it was empty, but the place was busy that evening and that had been impossible. Cold water had pulled the usual tricks to get him, and succeeded a few times, but he'd managed to change back each time before being noticed so far.

He was scrubbing a sink free of soap residue when the was a sudden loud clattering from the woman's side, accompanied by a startled exclamation from the girl working there, caught his attention. A second, also female, voice spoke after her, and although Ranma didn't catch the words the tone was recognized. 

Before he thought about it Ranma bolted. The fastest way to the woman's side that he knew he took, around the back, the side away from the hotel, and over some rocks that marked the edge of the springs. 

Ryouga had beaten him there, and she was already facing off against Herb, who was obviously feminine dressed in nothing but a towel that didn't hide anything very well.  

"You…" Herb and Ryouga said it in unison, glaring at each other with expressions of hate, although Herb's also contained a measure of amusement. 

"I'll kill you!" That was Ryouga only, said as she prepared to launch herself at the other woman, be it a suicide attack or no. Herb braced herself, prepared a counter – 

But the attack never came.

"Let me go!" shouted Ryouga, trying to wriggle free of Ranma's grasp. In response, Ranma knocked her to the ground, holding her there forcefully. She struggled, but to no avail; he was not kidding this time. 

"You stupid, moronic…" Ranma checked the insults, changing tactics. "She'll kill you!" he reminded Ryouga in a fierce whisper.

A flash of surprise crossed over her face, but then the anger and frustration reasserted itself. "Who cares!?"

"Lots more people than you think! What about Akane? What about me?"

The surprise came back as total, complete shock. _No…_

"What would I tell everyone at home? That I let you get killed? Hell no! Ryouga, we may not succeed here – I figured that from the start – but _I'm bringing you back alive_. What would they think of me if I didn't?"

"Bastard…" Ryouga growled in response, and such intense anger burned in her eyes for a moment that Ranma almost – almost – let her go. The fury had been directed at him… then it faded, and disappeared, turning into blankness. Ranma worried for a moment, but then his danger sense went off like a rocket and the outside chain of events continued.

Herb had been taking advantage of the pause to dress herself. Once finished, seeing the enemy distracted, she launched a large, crackling red energy sphere at the two of them.

Ranma dodged easily enough, carrying Ryouga with him behind a row of changing tables. He placed her a distance away, since she didn't seem to be able to leave on her own, and joined the battle, determination flaring. _It was lucky we ran into her here… and she's alone, that'll make it easier._

Ryouga listened to the sounds of the battle, but couldn't manage to move to watch it, much less join in _or_ run further away. She wasn't sure if it was shame that kept her immobile, fear, or what. About the time that the ground rumbled and Ranma's battle cries became higher in pitch, she finally determined that the fight was reaching a point that would endanger her and stood, shakily, and walked away, but only a short distance. If Ranma was going to fight in her place, fine, but damned if she'd miss the whole thing. She leaned against the wall in the back, near the entrance, and watched.

Herb shouted something and leaped off the top of the tallest of the rocks encircling the spring. Ranma, who had jumped into the water to change back to male form, looked up at her with apprehension and tried to dodge, but to no avail; Herb simply changed her path in midair and swooped over him, flying in loops as she cried out the name of her attack again. 

Ryouga couldn't quite tell what happened then. Ranma braced himself – clearly he'd seen this move before – but all that happened was huge water splashes. Ryouga was pretty sure that she was the only one who noticed that the hot water geysered up in five large circles as Herb passed over.

Herb landed neatly on the opposite side of the spring from the one she had started on. She seemed just as confused as Ranma. "What?!" she exclaimed, seeing that it hadn't hurt Ranma in the slightest, although he was now soaked in hot water from head to foot. Or perhaps he had been before, Ryouga wasn't sure.

The two combatants exchanged a volley of insults, threats, etc., but it ended in the obvious way, with Herb retreating due to the failure of her attack. Ranma watched her leave then turned away, looking smug as ever despite also being very battered. He turned to Ryouga but she walked away before he finished, ignoring him.

Arrogant jerk… 

***

AN: This chapter was one of the hardest to write, hence it took so long. But I'm back, baby! *grins*… I had about five other ideas for it and I couldn't choose one. But here you go, I even continued plot a bit.  Go me!

(Oh, and yes, there is a pun in the title. Unplanned, actually, but I like it.)

I changed the way I'm numbering the chapters now, if you noticed. The story is divided into parts, and each part is divided into chapters. Makes the chapter titles shorter (before, every chapter from 4 up started with "The Chasing of The Kaisufuu Part X:"), and makes the story overall a bit neater. Part One is "The Pink-Haired Girl" (chs 1-3). There will be at least two more chapters in Part Two, "The Chasing of the Kaisufuu" (chs 4-9+), and there will be at least three parts total, maybe four, depending. 

~Mordain


	12. A Literal Chase at Last

Disclaimer: I don't own… well, much of anything really… and certainly not Ranma ½. As much as I would like to…

AN: Yay! I'm actually finishing this Part 2! W00t! Here I come, Part 3! ^_^

***

**_Part Two, Chapter Seven – A Literal Chase At Last_**

Walk. Walk. Walk some more.

Ranma was getting seriously annoyed. He glanced back at Ryouga, who was following behind him with a determined expression on her face. It hadn't changed since… well, since that fight.

"Do you want to stop yet?" Ranma really did. He usually didn't mind keeping on the move all day, but this was getting ridiculous. It had to be well past midnight – the moon had already risen and set. It wasn't dawn yet, but Ranma figured that that couldn't be too far off. What made it worse was that it was the *third time*…

The pink-haired girl just shook her head. "No. It's this way, I know it is."

Ranma sighed in exasperation. "Look, Ryouga…"

"No. We keep going."

"But…!"

"You can stop if you want."

Ranma growled under his breath. He should've known something different was up when Ryouga suddenly snapped awake in the middle of the night after that fight with Herb and yelled one word – 'left'. Ranma had barely understood Ryouga's frenzied explanation at such an hour, but he had rolled open the map they'd bought – which obstinately had no mountains near them, much less one named Horaisan. Not to mention that it was different in scale, orientation, and style than the other one. It was impossible to compare to the map that they had lost, but it was the best alternative they had been able find. 

Ranma had fallen asleep again while Ryouga had stayed up all night playing with the map, twisting it around and muttering to herself, obviously trying to match it up with her vague memories of the other map. They'd tried this before, but nothing had come of it. When he'd woken up in the morning, she'd fallen asleep at the table, still holding the pen that she'd used to mark a circle on the map. She was convinced that their destination was there.

Even though it was marked as nothing but rolling farmland for miles and miles, with nothing more than a ridge of hills beyond that…

That had been two days ago, and all that time Ranma had had to lead. Ryouga was as hopeless as ever at following a map. Her miraculously acquired sense of direction notwithstanding, she still had no experience with actually finding her way to a destination. 

So Ranma was leading, knowing that if he even tried to stop Ryouga would keep walking in a straight line until she either found the Kaisufuu or strode off a cliff into the Pacific.

"Ryouga…" they'd spotted their likely destination, the mapped ridge of hills that were now visible in the near distance, a while ago. They'd known about that, but what hadn't been marked on the map was a single rocky peak that rose above the rest. That was probably it…

"Keep walking!" her voice fell at the end of the statement, however. "We'll… we can stop after this hill, ok?" The exhaustion was finally slipping into her voice. Ranma sighed.

"Alright." It wasn't that far; Ranma could see their target, a lone tree at the crest of the gentle rise they were climbing. It nice and grassy up there, Ranma could see by the starlight. It would be a good place to camp, and it wasn't but a few hundred feet off. 

A few hundred feet that felt like miles when it was coupled with the taunting promise of rest and sleep, however. Ranma hadn't been this tired in a long time…

The relief of relaxation wasn't all that greeted him at the top, however. A sprawling farmhouse, windows dark against the night, was at the bottom of a considerably steeper drop on the other side.

"Ah ha!" Ryouga exclaimed in triumph. 

"What?" Ranma turned to look at the madly grinning girl. "It's just a house…"

"That place was on the map!" Ryouga crowed, ignoring him. "I told you! We're almost there!" She was practically beaming… hell, she _was_ beaming. 

Ranma just settled down on the ground and fished a blanket out of his pack. "Okay, okay, so you were right, happy?" He gestured towards the hills. "That's probably it, and we can ask at that house in the morning to check." He leaned back against the tree and pulled the blanket to cover himself. Almost immediately he was asleep.

Ryouga, satisfied at making so much progress fell asleep without even bothering with a blanket. Her head rested against her pack like it was a pillow, a small smile gracing her face…

***  
  


"Horaisan!"

"What?! Speak up!"

Ranma felt like strangling the old man, nevermind his policy of not bullying the weak. Some bastards deserved it…! Ryouga detected his anger and glanced in Ranma's direction, frowning slightly. Ranma took a step back at this, letting Ryouga finish."

"Horaisan! The mountain! Have you seen anyone else going there?!" She practically bellowed it directly into his ear. Ranma blinked, but the image of the bullhorn in Ryouga's hand vanished. _Great, now I'm seeing things! First… *that*, now I'm going insane!_

The wizened old man jumped back a little, startled. "Horaisan?" he repeated, surprised.

"Yes! Horaisan! Have you seen anyone else going there?"

"You don't want to go to Horaisan." The old man leaned heavily on his cane, resting his chin on his hands as if he couldn't stand under his own power. 

"Huh?" 

"Yes yes, those three travelers… I told them not to go to Horaisan. You shouldn't go there, either."

"Is that it?" Ryouga pointed towards the mountain. "Were they going there?" 

The old man squinted, following her finger. After a moment of searching for the right direction, he nodded. "I warn you though, it's dangerous-"

"Thanks!" And Ryouga was off before the old man could finish his sentence, dragging a bewildered Ranma behind her.

"Watch out for the monsters!" But the two were already merely specks in the distance. The old man sighed. "They'll find out soon enough…"

***

"This… _this_ wasn't on the damn map?!" Ranma stared up the sheer cliff face and blanched slightly, intimidated although he'd never admit it. It was more impressive then it seemed in the distance. 

"Beats me…" Ryouga looked up as well and could almost feel her spirits falling. "Do you think you can scale that?"

"I think so…" Ranma placed one hand on a promising potential foothold and pressed. The stone crumbled under the stress. "…or not." He tried another outcropping. 

Ryouga stepped up to the wall and glanced each way. Up, down – nothing. Left, no… right… "Hey, what about…" Suddenly she caught a rustle of movement out of the corner of her eye. Ranma saw it to, and as one they spun around to see – 

Nothing. Then Ryouga glanced up.

"Hey!" Three blurry figures had appeared more than halfway up the cliff, where it sloped to a slightly less imposing angle. They had apparently come from the side… 

Ranma and Ryouga had just enough time to see Herb's face, smirking confidently down at them. Then they were gone…

"How are they climbing so fast?" Ranma exclaimed. 

"Great! How are we going to catch up with them?" Ryouga said at almost the same time. She looked wildly around. "There!" It wasn't much, the holds placed too far apart for her to reach. "We can-" She turned to face Ranma, but he was gone. "Where-"

"Here!" Ranma called from a ledge nearly twenty feet up. "Jump!" He stretched a hand down. "I'll pull you!"

With a running leap Ryouga managed to lock one hand firmly with Ranma. The other one scrambled for purchase on the cliff, and in a few seconds she was safely on the ledge, looking dazed. Her head spun, and despite the urgency of the situation, she could only think of holding Ranma's hand in her own. _Why…_

Ranma had already started to jump up again. "C'mon!" he shouted, reaching out to help her again.

Without even thinking Ryouga leapt for it, scrambling for the scant purchase that Ranma had found. It didn't offer much rest, though, because then he was off again and her along with him. Together they ran up the mountain, helping each other when necessary. It wasn't until Ryouga landed on the soft grass at the top, hand still holding Ranma's, that she realized that she hadn't really needed the help. She certainly didn't need to be holding his hand _now_… but…

A growling noise started in the bushes in front of them, and soon they were surrounded by the noise, along with dozens of pairs of eyes peering between leaves…

The two tensed for action. Then their adversary stepped out, and they froze in confusion. A… monkey? Then the rest of the troop stepped out, and they understood the threat. When that many teeth and claws were bared, monkeys were a perfectly viable enemy…

But for all the obvious aggression, the apes didn't attack. They seemed confused, actually, although still hostile of course. 

As a mater of fact, the monkeys were confused. The other three to come up were clearly out of their league, carrying the sprits of the tiger, wolf, and dragon with them, but these two…

The boy emitted the aura of a cutely smiling girl. But the girl… her aura couldn't make up her mind between just herself, an angry and dangerous dark-haired boy, and, curiously enough, a small black pig. The first and the last were harmless, but the second…

The apes attacked anyway.

"Ouch! Damnit… take that, you stupid monkeys!"

It was a long an vicious battle – well, not really - but finally the enemy was defeated. The monkeys fled, leaving the two wondering if they should feel proud of their victory. 

In the end, they decided they'd lost anyway, in losing track of Herb.

***  
  


"Damnit! They could be anywhere in this forest!" Ranma grumbled, pushing a clump of vines out of his way angrily.

"Yeah…" Ryouga agreed sourly. She poked a rock, and it exploded. The Bakusai Tenketsu was a good stress reliever.

"Ow! What was that?"

Ranma and Ryouga looked at each other. Slowly, they each reached out a hand to push a pair of branches away…

Lime and Mint didn't notice. They were apparently too intent on whatever their task was, and Mint on complaining about bees or something as he wiped a small trickle of blood from his forehead. Ranma and Ryouga looked at each other, not believing the opportunity. 

They let the branches fall back into place as they conferenced. 

"Herb's not with them. That's a lucky break…" Ryouga commented.

"Yeah. She must be resting or something… I can handle these two. They might be able to tell me where the Kaisufuu is… you keep looking, ok?"

Ryouga nodded curtly. "You sure?"

"Yeah." Ranma smirked. "Piece 'o cake."

They headed off in their separate directions. Ranma paused. "Just don't take on Herb before I get back, ok?" he called. When there was no response, he turned, but Ryouga was gone. He offered a small prayer that she didn't find their real enemy, shrugged, and continued following Herb and Lime. 

***  
  


AN: I actually cut this chapter in half because with the rest it was just too frickin' much story in one chapter. And yes, I am altering this part from the manga storyline. There's too many differences and besides, what's the point of just copying? (And no questioning why Horaisan wasn't one the map.) Only two times when that is necessary, and this is the second… anyway, love ya, enjoy the cliffhanger! ^_^ Ja!

~Mordain


	13. Things Don't Get Bad, They Get Worse

Disclaimer: You haven't been paying attention, have you?  
  
Note: I am back! Bwar! Bwar I say!   
  
For real this time: Note: I know it's been awhile since I've posted a new chapter here… a long long time… hopefully someone's actually reading this, or I'm gonna feel really stupid.  
  
***  
  


**_Part Two, Chapter Eight – Things Don't Get Bad, They Get Worse_**

  
Ryouga felt lost. She was used to being lost – well, had been used to it at least. She'd started to get used to actually knowing where she was – and that made this all the worse. Now that she knew the Kaisufuu was so near… it might as well not be. The forest just seemed to go on forever. _Ranma's even taking those two on by himself, so I can look for it. I hope he's alright._ She shook her head. _I do *not* have a crush on him. I'm a guy, damnit, and I'm *not* gay!_ But her memory of holding his hand and the mixed emotions that came with it were just confusing. She punched a tree. Not using the Bakusai Tenketsu, just sheer physical strength. It hurt her fist.  
  
She stared at the red mark on her knuckles. Another reminder of her weakness. _I'll never defeat Herb._ It was a crushing thought. But a true one. All practicing, all revenge, all anger aside – she didn't have a chance. The only chance was the Kaisufuu, and Ranma. _The Kaisufuu. If Mint and Lime were looking for it, than they haven't found it yet._ It was a small consolation, but true, and she snatched onto the hope it offered. Anything was better than thinking about her confusing feelings and the prospect of loss. _Herb's the only obstacle left, but she seems to be resting, so I don't actually have to fight her to get the kettle – assuming I can find it. But I have no clues to where it is, except that it's somewhere up here… but it's a powerful artifact. Something like that wouldn't be just buried in the dirt, it would be somewhere distinctive. And since it works with water, it might be near water… that would make sense. But where's water? It's the top of a mountain… and inland. Not a lake. Maybe a spring? That would make sense. _  
  
She looked around, but with all the trees he couldn't see more than ten feet in any direction. After a moment of futilely thinking ways to find water, she smacked her forehead. Finding the tallest tree nearby, she began to climb. As it turned out, the tree she picked was actually a short one, but after some hopping from tree to tree she found the tallest on in the local region, and a good view of the area.  
  
It was breathtaking. The trees formed a soft green carpet all around her, broken occasionally by rock formations like fingers pointing up to the sky, but the best part, the one that held her rapt for nearly a minute before she shook herself out of it, was the nearby cliff, the actual pinnacle of the mountain. It was a brown mottled cone, jagged with caves and dangerous-looking ledges, rising hundreds of feet above even where Ryouga was, at the top of the tallest tree she could see. Smaller cones circled it… but one was different. A cloud of mist and water obscured the lowest one, which looked distinctly different, rounder, than it's neighbors. Ryouga immediately forgot about the aesthetics and jumped down, running in the direction of what looked like a waterfall.   
  
***  
  
Meanwhile, Ranma had his hands full. Mint and Lime looked like kids, and perhaps one at a time they would be an easy fight for him, but their specialty was obviously fighting together, and they were very good at it. Mint seemed to have an unlimited supply of throwing knives, and every time Ranma would dodge one and go after the wolf-boy, Lime would take _his_ advantage and force Ranma to dodge that, which started the entire cycle over again, since Mint would interfere either with another knife or a swing with the giant scimitar that looked sharp enough to take down one of the giant trees without slowing down. But this was a rare challenge for Ranma – he was more used to his enemies bickering – and he determined to fight them normally. Besides, there wasn't really enough room to use any of his special moves without creating a disturbance noisy enough to reach Herb's ears – and he didn't want to involve the dragon as well as the tiger and wolf.  
  
Ranma took note when Mint stopped using the throwing knives. _He's out of throwing weapons – an opening!_ He jumped up to a low-hanging tree branch, one that Lime could reach but the shorter Mint could not. Sure enough, Lime jumped up and swung a punch at him before even landing on the branch, but Ranma was back on the ground by the point. Mint, surprised, swung with the scimitar but his full power wasn't behind it, and a kick to the wolf-boy's stomach knocked him to the ground.  
  
Then Lime landed on his head. Literally. Ranma had just enough time to see spots appear in front of his eyes, then his field of vision was filled with the flat of Mint's scimitar, and everything went black.   
  
For a few seconds, at least. Ranma was far from out for the count, but Lime and Mint apparently thought he was, and while he played dead for a few moments to let his head clear, they started to talk.   
  
"Should we take him back to Master Herb?" said Lime.  
  
"No, she told us not to disturb her, and you know that you have to give women their rest," Mint answered, his voice cracking a little on the word 'women'.  
  
"Should we leave him then?"   
  
"No, I think Master Herb should decide what to do with him."   
  
"Okay." Ranma was almost startled into moving when he was suddenly picked up and slung over a shoulder, apparently Lime's.  
  
They began to move. Mint complained a lot, mostly about losing a lot of throwing knives, the length of their search, and the small radius of the ladle's search ability – the last of them made Ranma play dead a little while longer. And sure enough, he kept talking. And Ranma kept listening. After only a couple minutes, they seemed to have forgotten about him.  
  
_ So the ladle can sense the presence of the kettle… that's interesting. Should I steal it? Or let them find it and take me there… wish I had a way to tell Ryouga… _  
  
His thoughts were cut off by Mint's jubilant shout. He opened his eyes and twisted around to look at what was happening, and Lime didn't even seem to notice, but he was pelting full speed through the woods. They reached a clearing and Ranma's eyes widened in shock, but after that moment he was frozen, he was afraid he was too late…  
  
***  
  
The Chiisuiton was the last thing on Ryouga's mind as she looked up at the very strange rock formation that loomed over the waterfall. _It's… a kettle?_ She wasn't sure if the rock itself was the kettle or just a sign that the actual artifact was nearby. The waterfall did seem to be pouring out of the rock's 'spout', which was strange enough in and of itself. She started to climb up to the rock. It was steep, but jagged enough to climb easily enough.   
  
Finally she reached the rock itself. It didn't seem magical at all, just a moss-covered stone that had somehow eroded into a kettle-shape. It wasn't even a very good likeliness of a kettle from close up, but the shape was too strange to be a coincidence. She started to climb to the top, using the handle as a handhold, when she slipped on the slimy moss and had to scramble so as not to fall the nearly thirty feet down, unto uncompromising stone. Luckily her left hand found a large crack in the stone, and she managed to regain her footing. She paused for a moment before continuing the climb, letting herself catch her breath and her heart stop pounding in her chest. She glanced at the crack she'd caught herself on. It was certainly a large one, covered up mostly by dry, dead moss. She scraped some of the moss out and forgot all about climbing to the top of the kettle-stone. The crack was deeper than it seemed. In fact, it seemed to go all the way to the center of the kettle.  
  
And the rock got warmer deeper underneath the surface. Now she frantically began to scrape away dead moss. Was it possible that the kettle was actually _inside_ the rock? It seemed ridiculous, but likely…  
  
She was so excited by the prospect that she didn't notice her danger senses flaring until less than a second before a hand wrapped around her throat.   
  
***  
  
Mint, Lime, and their forgotten cargo Ranma arrived just in time to see Herb, perched high on the side of a kettle-shaped rock, lift a surprised and struggling Ryouga up in the air. Herb's hand was tight around Ryouga's throat, and the pink-haired girl's attempts to get free were growing noticeably weaker, and quickly.   
  
The three new arrivals were surprised for about the same length of time, less than a second, but while Mint's cheer's drew Herb's attention to them, Lime's were cut off before they could begin as Ranma used his chest as a springboard to jump towards the suffocating Ryouga.   
  
"Mouko Takabishi!"  
  
Ranma didn't see the result of the attack – he landed before it hit and slid nearly ten feet along the ground, rolling to his feet before stopping and looking wildly around for where everyone had gone to. Herb had moved before the attack hit – instead, the full force of the ki-beam had hit the kettle rock, which was quickly falling apart, splashing loudly into the pool of water.  
  
But not everything in the water was a rock. Indeed, one human-shaped lump was floating to the surface. Unfortunately, it wasn't moving.  
  
***  
  
~Mordain  
  
  



	14. Explosion on Horaisan

Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma 1/2. Rumiko Takahashi and Viz (and possibly some others I'm forgetting) hold the legal rights. Hey, an actual disclaimer is a useful thing once in a while…

Author's Note: I apologize for my inability to write fight scenes. 

More notes: I'm getting there, I'm getting there! This chapter, number twelve by my count, is being released around the second anniversary of the first, but no worries, I'm not planning on stopping it at this point! Even though there have been long gaps, revisions (I'm working on a few even now), this fic is not stopping until it's finished – and it's not yet. Do I even still have any of my original readers, or have you all given up on me? Oh well… anyway, I know I'm not the best of authors nor am I the most popular, but I'd like to thank anyone who's still reading this! Enjoy the last chapter of part two, and don't forget to review!

***

Part Two, Chapter Nine: Explosion on Horaisan

Ranma cursed and dove, reaching the water in one smooth leap. _Please don't be dead please don't be dead… _he chanted mentally as he swam through the turbulent water to reach Ryouga, even as it was still being pelted with crumbling fragments of stone. 

Herb had dodged the blast with only the mildest of injuries after tossing Ryouga's limp body negligently aside – directly towards the water, but not out of the range of the spray of stone fragments. She started to move to stop Ranma but held back. She shook her head a large chunk of rock missed Ranma by inches. It wasn't worth it. She hadn't seen the shape of the boulder that had just been demolished, just her adversary climbing up its side. Else she might have been a little more upset.

The only thing that Mint and Lime noticed was that their captive wasn't their captive anymore, and he had attacked their master. They charged, screaming outrage.

Herb held up a hand to stop them and they skidded to a halt, confused. An errant throwing knife pinged off of a falling rock that fell just in time in front of Ranma's neck. "Master Herb?" the two lackeys questioned in unison. Herb hushed them, and pointed at Ranma.

The pair watched, confused, as Ranma – now female from the rescue - pulled Ryouga's limp body out of the water and carried her to the shore, knocking the last few bits of rubble away. She checked for a pulse as she laid Ryouga gently on the ground but it didn't seem to reassure Ranma at all; if anything she looked more worried as she started a clumsy attempt at CPR. Water bubbled out of the pink-haired girl's mouth but there was no sign of life. Herb smirked. 

"She is dead." Ranma ignored Herb's proclamation. "She was weak, and paid the price for her error. Will you leave now that she whom you protected is dead, or will you foolishly attempt to avenge her? If you leave now I will spare your life, I have no quarrel with you."

"Bastard…" Ranma spat the word out loudly enough for the insult's target to hear. Herb bristled. She even took a step forward – but didn't attack.__

Ranma leaned down a little more than was necessary to check Ryouga's pulse again, and whispered in her ear. "Ryouga, if you can hear me – don't move. I'm gonna challenge Herb." She didn't even twitch. Ranma hoped that that was a good sign. She stood, faced her adversary, and took three slow steps in her direction. Mint and Lime moved to protect their master, but Herb pushed them away and they retreated into the forest, close enough to watch but not interfere. 

"You challenge me to a duel? Very well. I accept." Herb grinned.

"I wasn't planning on lettin' you decline…" said Ranma, not smiling. This was… too much. Killing crossed the line. _Even if she didn't… she meant to. _

The battle began.

***  
Ryouga felt as dead as Herb thought she was. Dead, but her ears seemed to be working. She heard Ranma's voice, felt the warmth of his breath on her ears. _He saved me again… _

It took a little bit of effort to tell for certain that she was alive, however. She was feeling very definitively waterlogged, and she couldn't think clearly for the pain. Her body spasmed with involuntary coughs, each one bringing water up with it. She couldn't taste anything, but she had the vague suspicion that if she could, it would be the ferrous taste of blood. But she couldn't, and each cough made it easier to breathe even if each breath hurt. She concentrated on nothing but breathing for several minutes.

Ryouga could still feel Herb's hand around her neck above everything else. It was as if the talons were still digging into soft skin where an Adam's apple should be – but that was impossible. She could hear Herb's voice, now, and it was more distant. Ranma was probably trying to keep the fight far away, trying to keep her safe. Ryouga mentally scoffed that idea. _Why bother protecting me… _

Now feeling somewhat better – or at least not half-drowned anymore - she managed to force herself into a more comfortable position, half-sitting up against a rock. It was during that she realized exactly how battered she was. She had been mostly unconscious for most of what had happened, but it was easy enough to put together vague memories from evidence at hand. Falling in the water had probably saved her a lot of injury. The kettle-stone had been blasted into gravel, but even gravel would have hurt her seriously in her current condition – if the water hadn't protected her from much of the impact. Of course, her back hadn't been spared anything, but that pain was local, and minor compared to the agony in her chest from being suffocated and then nearly drowned. That pain was fading, however, with every breath of fresh air. At least all the water had drained out of her lungs. 

She spent a few minutes resting, watching what she could see of the fight from her vantage point. She sighed, coughed painfully, made a mental note not to do that again, and looked down. _Well, you can't say anything 'bout his determination, but this can't be good… I have to do something. Besides, they're coming this way again…_

Gingerly she shook her head to dry out her hair, sending sparkling drops flying in a wide radius. She coughed purposefully, testing her throat, and while it hurt slightly, it wasn't nearly so bad any more. She started to push herself up into a standing position, but an unexpected pain in her hand sent her back to the ground.

It didn't take long to figure out why, but it did take a moment of effort to unclench her fist. All though fled her mind when she finally did. She stared at the object it contained blankly for a moment. It stared back, sitting innocently in her hand atop a vivid red mark. She looked up, blankly, at the fight between Ranma and Herb. Then she looked back down. _So I did find it…_

It was the broken-off handle of a small, and very ornate, teakettle. 

***  
"Amaguriken!" 

Herb grinned as she dodged or deflected each and every punch that Ranma threw and countered with a single strike of her own to Ranma's head. It missed, of course, but in the moment when the two were unmoving after Ranma jumped away, it was painfully obvious as to who was winning the fight, especially when Ranma had to struggle for purchase on slippery stone with an injured leg - and Herb stood her ground, unshaken.

Several trees had been blasted down as a result of more Mouko Takabishas than Ranma could ever remember using in a single fight before, and a spiral smudge in the dirt bore witness to Ranma's attempt at a Hiryu Shoten Ha. Ranma simply couldn't think of a way to get her angry; her chi was so cold this fight that the special attack hadn't had a chance. Herb, on the other hand, was having great luck making Ranma almost – _almost _– wish that she hadn't taken on this fight.

Herb ended the brief pause with a quick slice of her arm through the air. "Hito Ryu-zan Ha!"

Ranma nearly fell backwards trying to dodge the barrage of knife-like chi bullets, but one glanced her shoulder and tore through fabric and flesh, slicing off her left sleeve and leaving a long shallow gash that welled blood in a way that couldn't be healthy. She winced. 

Nothing was working. Ranma's mind whirled, but nothing was working. For once in her life, Ranma Saotome was out of ideas. But she charged again anyway, trying to keep in melee. Range was far too much of a deathtrap.

A flurry of punches, a failed leg sweep – Ranma leapt over it and tried a spinning kick for Herb's head. It connected, but with armor brought up to block rather than skull, and slid off harmlessly. It went on like this for a while, neither side able to gain clear advantage, but finally Ranma connected a punch to Herb's right shoulder, just under the armor. Herb's counter was simple, just as improvised, but deadly effective – a glowing green knife of energy sprung from the first two fingers of her left hand.

Ranma was backflipping away when she was knocked out of the air by Herb's slash. Caught surprised, it took everything she could muster just to land on her feet. Even so, she stumbled.

Ranma knew she was lucky. In a way. Herb had hit her back, and the knife – which Herb dismissed, since Ranma didn't attack again – could have easily cut into her spine and injured her more seriously, permanently – possibly fatally. As it was, Herb had sliced the muscles below her right shoulder, and she could feel the energy draining out of that arm. Combined with her other injury, both her arms were now nearly useless…

Ranma was used to the feeling of failure – in a way. There was always something she was able to do to make a comeback. But there would be no rematch. This *was* the rematch, and Ranma had nothing. It was actual defeat, and that was something entirely new…

***  
Ryouga watched Ranma stumble back from Herb. _He's alright. Good sign. As if anything would help now._ Taking another look at the object she held in her hand, she took a deep breath and shakily pulled herself to her feet. 

"Hey, Herb!"

The shout tried to choke in her throat but she managed to get it out, and even if it was weak Herb's ears were sharp and she heard. Her eyes widened. "You're dead!" she called back, turning and raising her unhurt left arm for the finishing move, but Ryouga held up what her hand was holding, and Herb froze. Black electricity died in her fingertips.

"The kettle's broken! It'll never work now!" Ryouga pointed at the rock. It was entirely demolished; the last few remaining pieces had fallen during the battle. There was no sign of the Kaisufuu – other than the piece Ryouga held. "The kettle was in the rock, and he blasted it to pieces! We're *both* stuck like this, forever!"

"Hito Ryu-zan Ha!" But Ryouga had collapsed to the ground, and the knives flew over her head, reducing a few trees tens of meters behind her to shreds. 

Ryouga looked up, wondering what would happen now, hoping impossibly for something to happen. And something did. Herb was glowing, displaying a true battle aura for the first time. It was a ferocious one, composed of pure anger and hatred, deep red – and hot. 

Hot enough to make Ranma's course of action painfully clear. 

She was relieved, of course, that Ryouga was alive. The kettle was broken, so now Ranma would never be able to use it to cure her own curse, and Ryouga was stuck… the sympathy she felt for Ryouga resonated somewhere. 

She didn't understand, and she didn't dwell on it. She couldn't. 

Moving with all the speed she could muster she was attacking Herb once again, less then a second spent in any sort of contemplation of the situation. She punched Herb, just a straight punch with little technique behind it, and there wasn't much strength there either – but it was something to start the sequence of events that somehow had to happen.

It didn't have any obvious effect. Herb had been facing away but was hardly caught by surprise. She whirled, striking Ranma's fist with the tip of her shoulder armor in the process. Ranma barely noticed the pain as she threw another punch, missed, and retreated… in a curving path instead of a straight line. Herb, blinded with anger, took the bait. 

Ranma could feel strength draining out of her as she led Herb in the spiral. Every third blow or so that Herb countered with connected, and every muscle ached, but she kept going. Soon Herb wasn't countering anymore but rather attacking; all Ranma had to do was back up, keep to the spiral…

Finally Ranma stood on the second-to-last step of a perfect spiral, aura-heated air swirling around her invigoratingly. She took a deep breath and the last step.

"Hiryu…" A hit to the stomach almost winded her in the middle of the phrase. "Shoten… Ha!" She punched hard, up into the air, her disheveled hair flying like a fire on the top of her head.

But Herb, master of chi, was once again not caught unawares. The attack had already failed once on her, and once was enough. Her aura turned blue and freezing a split second before Ranma's punch. And, indeed, a tornado appeared – flinging Ranma high into the air but leaving Herb, in its center, safe on the ground. 

She stepped out of the whirlwind and turned to Ryouga. "Still alive? Well, I don't know how, but you won't be for much longer… now that that little mosquito is out of the way…" 

Ryouga shook her head, looked at the kettle handle she still held, and chuckled, but the laugh ended in a hacking cough. "I'm dead, am I… and Ranma's dead already… and I'm a girl forever… but so are you…" 

Herb took a step closer. "You're wrong on the last, little girl… shame, killing someone so weak as you almost isn't-"

Ryouga held up one finger to her lips. Herb cut off in mid-sentence, involuntarily. She bristled, and her angry red aura appeared again. It seemed to be automatic. She opened her mouth to continue, but was quieted again by something even more unexpected.

Ryouga reversed the direction of her finger and pressed it hard into the ground. "Wrong." Ryouga said the word in a rasping whisper. "My weakness… doesn't matter." 

"What?"

Ryouga squeezed her eyes closed and pressed her finger into the ground, ignoring when it started to bleed, ignoring everything. It didn't take long. "Bakusai Tenketsu… revised."

For a moment nothing happened. Then there was the smallest of shakes in the ground like a distant earthquake but rather than settling quickly it grew, until pebbles bounced on the ground and larger rocks cracked. A deep rumbling sound from the bowels of the mountain worked its way up into the realm of human hearing and a spider's web of tiny cracks appeared in the supposedly solid rock, spewing beams of black light and torrents of darkened water that shot up into the sky, dimming the daylight. The drops didn't fall back to the surface quite yet, however…

Herb backed off, trying to find someplace stable, trying to figure out what was going on. The only thing her senses told her made no sense…__

"Heavy chi-?"

There was no more time to think. Horaisan exploded in a cloud of darkness. 

***

End Part 2

~Mordain

More Author's notes (you know you love it): Thanks and credit to ArchmageSilvento for pulling me out of my block on this story, and giving me two of the major ideas that happened here and will be explained better in the following chapters. Ja!


	15. Part Three: Falls

Disclaimer: Ranma's not mine. Get over it. 

***

**_Part Three: Falls_**

Prologue: Failure

Ranma was bewildered to say the least when she found herself flung into the air by something that should, by all past knowledge and expectation, have done the exact reverse. It didn't take long for the wind to stop, however, and she started to brace herself for the impact of landing again, when something even less expected – not that he was surprised by this point – happened.

A stream of water geysered up from the ground, soaking her. That was perhaps explainable, but the wave of dark light that accompanied the water was not. She was blinded for an instant from the combination.

_Dark light… _Once she – he now, from the chi-heated water – figured out what had happened, he was levitating in midair, buoyed up by the force of the familiar energy pulsing out from the mountain in massive waves.

It only lasted a moment. He had a glimpse of the mountain breaking apart, almost dissolving, then the fuse that had been quickly burning this entire time was gone and the entire thing exploded, flinging Ranma away in a swirl of wind, water, dark light and stone. He was almost unconscious by the time he landed, and the force of the landing finished the job. 

***  
  
Before opening her eyes, Ryouga hoped – half-heartedly by this point, from her track record so far it was unlikely – that she was dead. It would certainly make things easier.

She was covered with a strange numbness, to the point where she couldn't even tell if she had a body. The memory of pain lingered, though, and she could feel it in the back of her head like a fear – no, like a phobia, that would make her scream if the ignorance of its existence was wiped away. 

But she had eyes to open, and opened them.

She couldn't recognize what it was she saw. _Heaven? _It was certainly white enough. She closed her eyes again, because whatever it was, it hurt. Bright light stabbed through retinas that weren't used to so much anymore, and she couldn't imagine anyone's vision of heaven leaving her in the same condition that she had been in before… 

That was, in a great deal of pain. A great deal, but it was coming back slowly. Nerve by nerve, sensation was coming back, and most of the status reports weren't good. Broken leg, likely. Bruises everywhere. A million cuts and worse, which would probably kill her from blood loss sooner rather than later. But even so, it seemed strange. She was alive, which was odd enough – and didn't seem to be dying.

If anything, she was getting better. And just when she was confident that she actually was ready to be put on the cart this time…

"Hey, you're awake."

_Ranma?!_

***  
  
~Mordain

AN: Ah… return of the oh-so-useless prologue chapter. Oh well, I like them. Chapter 1 is a doozy, tho'… return of the massive chapters is coming next. Apologies for the shortness of this update (tho' it's longer than the other prologues)… the chapter one is long and ponderous. Too long, almost, 'cept people seem to like that ^_^. Review if you feel like it, I'm not really expecting anything for such a short update, but it would make me muchly happy ^_^. Ja!


	16. Life

Disclaimer: You know the drill by now. Ranma ½ isn't mine, never will be, and I'm not making any money off of this. All hail Rumiko Takahashi… (no, I'm serious. Start hailing. She's amazing ^_^)

Author's notes: Bad speculators! Bad! (just kidding… more or less ^_^)

Although I *am* glad people are finding this interesting enough to actually put some thought into it. I think some of you are putting more thought into it than I am!

*does happy dance* Fifty reviews! *is still astonished to the point of incoherency* I never thought it would happen! *jumps up and down* well, I meant to post this early, but this was a busy Friday/Saturday… it's still Saturday here tho'… 11:51 isn't too late… anyway… I guess I actually have to give you guys the chapter now, don't I… *sigh*… well, with no further ado (namely I've got to stop stalling…) here it is, 3.1:

***

**_

Part Three, Chapter One: Life

_**

Ranma had been as surprised as Ryouga to find himself alive. Something soft that had broken his fall and saved his life had turned out to be a dried-up pond, which was mud during the dry season. There had been a farmhouse nearby, and the bewildered farmer, who had come outside to investigate the damage and try to find out why his land had abruptly lost a prominent landmark, had found Ranma on his land. He had woken Ranma up and tried to find out what had happened, but Ranma refused to have any of that and had immediately insisted that they begin a search for Ryouga.

And they had found her, limp and unconscious nearly a mile away in another field, lying half in an irrigation canal and looking mostly dead. It was entirely possible that Ryouga's bright pink hair had saved her life. 

The ambulance the farmer had called earlier for Ranma arrived fifteen minutes later and took both of them to the hospital. It was a long drive, and the chances they gave Ryouga's survival weren't good. 

Ranma just smiled tiredly at the paramedics. "You'd be surprised… what he can live through…" he said, and promptly passed out. This confused the ambulance crew greatly.

It was entirely possible that the boy was delirious. After all, judging by his condition, he should have already been unconscious, if not dead… but the girl was simply a miracle. The chief paramedic, shaking his head sadly, voiced his prediction that neither of them would survive the drive to the hospital…

***  
  


That paramedic was still half-convinced that he was dreaming. But no matter how many times he pinched himself, when he came to work the next day and checked on the two young people he had picked up the day before, the sight of them both calmly asleep and with steady vital signs just didn't seem real.

He shook his head. "No way."

***  
  
Two days later Ranma was awake again. He was still bed-bound, and all four limbs were wrapped into unusability by layers of gauze and bandage, but he was awake – if somewhat groggy.

The doctors were annoying. The questions came slowly, but they were asked repeatedly until Ranma either gave an answer or convinced them that he didn't know, both of which took more effort than he felt like using. "How do you feel?" "Who are you?" "Do you remember what happened?" "Who is the girl who was with you?" Ranma did his best to answer the questions that didn't involve long drawn-out explanations, which basically meant that he told them that he was feeling much better, thank you, and gave them his and Ryouga's names. For some reason they also felt obliged to ask if the two of them were married. Ranma gave that one a firm 'no' and glared at the doctor who asked it until he almost sheepishly rephrased the question into a query about their relationship, which got a better answer – 'friends'. That was the last question, and soon afterward they filed out of his room, talking amongst themselves excitedly.

Ranma could hear the pair of nurses chittering outside even after the others had already left. Probably gossiping. He sighed and closed his eyes, hoping that the heat he felt was only because of the warm bandages and blankets that they saw fit to cover him with. He wriggled as best he could in the bed, trying to move. He had gathered the information that he'd been asleep for a few days from the bits of information that the doctors had tossed at him every so often, but he had no idea what Ryouga's condition was. From the sound of it, she was still unconscious. Hopefully not dead. Something in the doctors' attitudes implied that she wasn't, but she most likely wasn't awake yet, not if they were asking him her name. 

Ranma yawned. He didn't know how he could possibly be tired, but he somehow was – it was probably because of the injection that the doctors had given him. He had hardly noticed it; one had been asking him questions while the other stuck the needle in his arm. 

_That was… sneaky… of them…_

Ranma fell asleep.

***

It was an agonizingly boring wait of three days after that – during which they still persisted with the questions - before he could finally cajole a doctor into allowing the nurse to pile him into a wheelchair and take him to Ryouga's room. He protested he use of a wheelchair, but there would be no compromise. 

The pink-haired girl's room was eerily silent, far from the noisy center of the hospital. He didn't ask for the name of the special ward that she was in.

"Ryouga?" He tried, tentatively, after a few seconds of motionlessness on her part. There was no answer. 

"She's been in a coma. It's unlikely that she'll wake up any time soon," said the nurse, refusing to mention that it was unlikely that she would ever wake up at all. The boy looked sad enough, and he was still in bad shape. No need to make the situation worse.

Ranma shrugged. "He - she'll be okay." The nurse shook her head sadly at this, but he hadn't looked up, and didn't see. 

He only had ten minutes, and the nurse was there the entire time, holding loosely onto the IV stand they kept attached to his left arm. He wished that he knew what the clear fluid constantly dripping into his arm was. 'Saline solution' was what they had told him, but in plain language that seemed to mean salt water – which didn't make much sense. 

Ryouga had three sterile bags hanging from the IV stand, twin to Ranma's, that stood silent vigil over her bed. Only one was hooked up at the moment, the one with the same clear liquid as his. One was half-filled with a pale yellow liquid that seemed to contain motes of something that caught the light occasionally, and the other – Ranma refused to look at very closely. It was almost empty, but the thick red fluid inside persisted, sticking to the sides of the bag. The nurse took that one down and disposed of it, which helped.

They made him leave after precisely ten minutes, but promised he could stay longer the next day.

***

The next day he was allowed to stay for an hour, and after the first ten minutes the nurse was called away. Ranma leaned against the corner of the bed. The bandages wrapping his arms and legs had been removed, but there were still some covering a few of his worse wounds. He had seen them uncovered, when they were changing his bandages, and was glad that they weren't visible.

He propped himself up on the corner of the bed, resting his chin in his hand. Ryouga just laid there, not moving. 

"Y'know, you better live through this." He paused, as if waiting for an answer. The words echoed slightly in the quiet room.

"I need you to tell me what'cha did. I felt Shishihoukodan energy, but there was somethin' else. That wouldn't've done what you did, not on it's own." The question had been bothering him for days. "What did you do?"

There was no answer, of course. "Well, I s'pose it can wait 'til you're better. For now… argh, this place is boring. I gave 'em my name and yours but they can't find anything like an address to call, 'cause the only Ryouga Hibiki in their computer system is male, they think they've got someone else, or maybe there just isn't anyone at your house – and I guess my address just isn't listed with my name anywhere, Saotome's a common enough name but Ranma's not. It's probably a good thing, I mean; I don't want Akane here complaining at me…"

He babbled on in this vein for a few more minutes, talking about nothing and whatever came to mind.

Finally he ran out of things to say, and trailed off. He checked the clock. It had been about an hour, but no one came to collect him, so he could only assume that they had forgotten. He waited, bored, but at least the scenery was different. Ryouga had a window, of course, and it showed something rather more interesting than the wall that was Ranma's view. The hospital, a surprisingly modern facility, was on the edge of the tiny town, whatever town it happened to be, next to a forest. It was a pretty forest, but that wasn't the most interesting thing about the view. What was the most interesting thing was the fact that it was *only* a forest visible.

Even now, almost a week later, Ranma could still tell just by looking that this window used to offer a great view of Horaisan, off in the distance. The hills surrounding the place where the mountain had been were still visible, but there was a distinct gap in the middle. Ranma imagined that he could still see black smoke curling up from the ruins, but of course that was impossible. All the remnants of that day had long dissipated – except, of course, the obvious lack of Horaisan.

The hospital people had been surprisingly uninquisitive about the events that had led to the destruction of the mountain, even though it was obvious their patients must have had something to do with it. Ranma got the distinct impression that there was media pressuring to speak with him, but he'd asked not to see anyone like that, and to keep their names confidential. So far, they hadn't been bothered, and he could only assume that the hospital was keeping up the second part of the bargain too. 

He was half-asleep, leaning against Ryouga's bed, when he felt a twitch, and snapped back awake. Or at least to some groggy sense of coherency. "Ryouga?"

There was a groan from the pink-haired girl, and she moved – almost wriggled, sliding limbs against the bed as if she was in pain. Which she probably was. There was a few seconds of this – then her eyes cracked open. And immediately pressed closed again, accompanied by another groan. 

"Hey, you're awake," Ranma stated the obvious.

Ryouga froze for a split second, then her eyes snapped open again, and rolled down as far as they could, trying to see the origin of the voice. "R-_Ranma?_"

Ranma chuckled to cover the immense wash of relief that suddenly hit him. "Yeah, it's me. Who'd you expect?"

Ryouga struggled, trying to sit up. 

"Hey hey, don't do that," said Ranma, trying to stop her from moving too much. "You're not in good shape. The nurse'll be here soon, I'm su…"

The door slammed open and the nurse half-ran in, giving Ranma an angry glare as she reached him. She rolled his wheelchair to the other side of the room. Ranma didn't see very well what happened next, but it involved the doctor, a flurry of note-taking, and questions that made Ranma roll his eyes, reminding him distinctly of when he woke up at first. Sure, it was a miracle that they were alive, but miracles happened every day. _Can't they just leave it alone?_

It was a good fifteen minutes before they settled down. Ranma rolled himself closer to Ryouga. Ryouga had obviously figured out the situation by this point, and was submitting to the examination with obvious reluctance. She spied Ranma coming into her field of view, and gave him a glare that said, as clear as any words:

_You better tell me what the hell happened. _

Ranma nodded, ever so slightly, with a half-smile coming to his face as he responded silently, 

_Yeah yeah, sure – but you gotta fill me in too. _

***  
  
However, no amount of asking on their parts would convince the nurse to let Ranma stay, and he was wheeled back to his room, protesting the entire way. 

Or at least he was still protesting when his complaints faded from Ryouga's hearing. Ryouga sighed. 

_A hospital. Oh well. I'm alive. _It was strangely empty thought. _Everything's over. We failed. The Kaisufuu's destroyed. _She could remember clearly, almost too clearly, what had happened. She'd been climbing the rocks, almost giddy with how close she was to success, and found a crack in the stone big enough to reach her hand into. She had found something, even, grasped something thin and metallic – the handle, obviously - when Herb had grabbed her neck and pulled her away from the stone, holding her in midair by the throat. 

Wait. 

_I still had the handle in my hand when I came to – which means… _she couldn't quite think of the next logical step in the sequence - her mind was too fuzzed with whatever medicine it was the doctor had given her. It was obviously something rather potent, and was making her exhausted. With little preamble, she soon fell asleep again.

She solved the mystery in her dreams, but forgot when she woke up again the next day.

***  
  


Ranma woke up with a start, shouting something incoherent. There had been a dream – but three seconds in the dark stillness of the hospital room drained away the memory. He wiped cold sweat off his forehead, the only remnant of the dream – or nightmare – other than a disconcerting feeling deep in the pit of his stomach. 

He laid back down. There seemed to be little reason to stay up. He squinted at the clock. It was after one am. He sighed, no longer tired in the least. He had been asleep for about twelve hours already, after all. The hospital seemed to like making him sleep. It was better than the mind-numbing boredom of staying awake, at least…

He shifted, trying to get into a more comfortable position, since it looked like sleeping was the only viable option at the moment. The hospital was dead silent in the middle of the night – a beam of light snuck its way into his room through the crack under the door, and that was the only sign that there was life anywhere in the building. 

Ranma rolled unto his back, and sighed faintly. Looking up all he could see was the black ceiling. Sleeping was a simple impossibility – he had been doing almost nothing but sleeping for the past few days, and his body was firm in his insistence to stay awake. Besides, the thoughts wouldn't leave him alone…

Their chance at a cure for Ryouga had failed, crushingly. _He's trapped forever, now… _he was surprised at the sympathetic pain the thought brought, a sudden tense pain in his throat. _What… what's going to happen now? What will he do? Will he keep trying to kill himself? Eventually he'll succeed… What will _I_ do? _Ranma's hand clenched the sheet at his side. _Should I keep stopping him? Should I let him have what he wants? Would I want to die, in his place? _Ranma doubted it. _I'm not sure I even understand… and I can't let him die…_

It was the understanding that made it so uncomfortable, Ranma suddenly realized. He had never experienced the same hopelessness as Ryouga did now… but he had come close. Very close – although of course he had never shown it. _Ryouga's always been more open than me. I can't show weakness, can't cry… but he can. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, right there for anyone who wants to look. Even when he wants to hide his feelings, he can't… but now he's different. He's trying to hide things from me, and I can tell there's something there… but not what. _It had been frustrating Ranma ever since Ryouga had appeared that day on the streets of Nerima. _He gave up the old secret when he told Akane he loved her, but now there's a new one, something he won't tell me and I can't figure it out. Maybe he's just more reserved now… but that doesn't seem right…_

He sighed, rolled onto his side, and stared at the wall for a few more minutes before falling asleep again, his thoughts no clearer than before.

***

Back in Nerima:

"No explanation has yet been found for the mysterious explosion of Horaisan. The two potential witnesses found near the scene are still hospitalized and unavailable for questioning." After several days of nothing new – the exhaustive search of the rubble that was the mountain had yet to produce any results - the short blurb was the only update on the situation on the official news. There was massive noise about the event available on other programs, but it was all speculation and theory, in the end, and none of it came close to what Akane believed was the truth anyway.

She sighed and turned off the television. The two witnesses they kept talking about had to be Ranma and Ryouga. But there was nothing they could do. Because of the widespread news stories, the hospital simply wasn't accepting any calls with regards to the witnesses, not yet at least, and even the media couldn't get its hands on the names. Apparently they were still in bad condition, which was worrying. 

At least, she hoped that the two people everyone kept talking about. It could just as easily be two of the Musk Dynasty members. Akane chose not to think about that possibility.

She was startled out of her thoughts by a great clattering noise from the kitchen, and a shout of surprise in Kasumi's voice. Akane jumped up and ran to see what had happened. 

"The shelf broke…" her older sister had already fetched a broom and was beginning to sweep up the great mess that was most of the dishes they owned smashed to shards on the tile floor. 

Even as Akane ran to grab a dustpan and help clean, there was another shout, although this one was more like a curse. 

"My sandal!" That was Genma's voice. Akane didn't bother to investigate. 

Kasumi shook her head. 

"You don't actually believe in bad omens, do you sister?" Akane asked, trying to be lighthearted although she wasn't sure she wasn't starting to believe herself. Just minutes before the news broadcast had aired about Horaisan for the first time, the shelf holding up the Tendo family shrine had broken. Strange things had been happening ever since… it was probably coincidence, but it still bugged her where she wouldn't admit it, and didn't reassure her at all about the condition of Ranma and Ryouga.

Kasumi didn't pause in her sweeping. "We'll just have to wait and see…" she looked up at her sister. "Don't worry too much, Akane," she reassured her. "I'm sure he's just fine."

Akane snorted. "I'm not worried about that jerk!" It was a blatant lie – but Kasumi was kind enough not to point that out.

***  
  


Returning to the main story… at a hospital, somewhere in the middle of Japan:

It was another week before Ryouga could walk again. Ranma spent the entire time allowing the doctors to keep him drugged, not letting them know that he didn't need it anymore. Everyday, he visited Ryouga, each day for a little longer. He was always a bit giddy from the drugs, never entirely coherent, but he preferred it that way. 

But every night, the drugs would wear off faster than the doctors realized. And on that day, when during his visit to Ryouga he could tell that she was healed enough, he slipped out of bed, ignoring the protests of his body claiming it was tired, and carefully creaked open the doors. 

The security of the hospital didn't have a chance. Ranma wasn't exactly a ninja, but he knew how to be silent, and the hospital wasn't expecting anything from him – after all, he'd been such a good patient up until that point. It was a simple task for him to sneak into Ryouga's room.

He hadn't been expecting there to be a nurse standing watch over her, scribbling something into a notepad, so he was noticed when he slipped inside. There was no choice - he knocked her unconscious, gently. He felt a twinge of guilt, but knew there was no other option – even if Ryouga didn't agree, they would have to escape now. If they were still there when the nurse awoke, they would put him under tighter security and he didn't want to have to fight his way out of a hospital.

He leaned down and shook Ryouga's shoulder. "Hey, wake up!" he whispered in her ear, and her eyes snapped open. 

"Wha… Ranma?" She blinked rapidly, trying to wake up on sudden notice. "What are you doing?"

"Shh!" he held a finger to his lips. "We're gettin' out of here," he whispered. 

Ryouga just stared at him for a moment. "Are you insane?" she whispered back, fiercely.

"No," Ranma answered slowly, straightening. "I'm right. We've gotta leave. If we lived Herb did too, you know I'm probably right. And if she's alive, she's gonna come after us. I don't want to get the hospital caught in the crossfire. Horaisan was remote. This place isn't. Now c'mon, I know you're better now."

"I…" Ryouga hesitated. "You're right." She nodded curtly, pulling herself shakily to her feet. 

"Can you do this on your own?" Ranma asked, placing a hand on her shoulder to steady her. She pushed it off.

"Of course." 

They left. It was a surprisingly simple job to climb out the window and to freedom, even with Ryouga's condition the way it was. The only thing they took with them was a bag that the hospital had collected of Ryouga's belongings – a few things that had been found scattered about the countryside that were presumably from her pack. Ranma had managed to collect real clothing on his trip to Ryouga's room from a cart full of clean laundry, and they were nondescript enough in pale jeans and white t-shirts not to be questioned by anyone as they simply walked out of the town along a convenient highway, following the signs to Tokyo.

***

"What did you _do_?" Ranma didn't wait very long before asking the question. "It's been buggin' me. I mean – you destroyed a _mountain_."

Ryouga didn't look at him, keeping her eyes fixed on the road ahead instead. "Breaking point," she answered simply.

"Bakusai Tenketsu…" Ranma murmured to himself. "How did that…"

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, now, or at least she may have been looking at him. He wasn't quite sure, and it was mildly disconcerting. "I also used the Shishihoukodan."

Ranma nodded at that. "I felt that. So that's what you used on Herb… I guess… it was a strong one, and the mountain couldn't withstand just broke apart under the pressure…?" Ranma didn't quite believe his reasoning as he said it. 

Ryouga shook her head. "Didn't you hear what I said? I said I used the Bakusai Tenketsu. _And _the Shishihoukodan."

"Ah…" For a moment, he was confused. Then it clicked. "You mean you _linked _them!?"

Ryouga nodded, the slight curl of a smile twitching on the edges of her expression. "Yeah. Right under Herb. The blast was supposed to go up, but… I guess you were right, the mountain was already shaken by everything that had already happened, so it exploded instead. Or I actually managed to hit the breaking point of the mountain itself. I can't remember, exactly."

Ranma couldn't think of a response to that for a moment. "That's…" Ryouga's expression froze. Ranma hesitated, confused by the sudden draining of expression from her face. "…pretty damn cool," he finished a moment later.

The half-smile returned, and grew a little. "Thanks."

_Wha… what was that all about? _Ranma couldn't remember Ryouga ever reacting like that before. But… _it was almost like he was afraid of what I was going to say. _

"Ryouga…" he trailed off, wondering why he was saying this. "I'm sorry."

Ryouga froze. Ranma had to stop so he wouldn't leave her behind. "Sorry for what? It was my fault."

_What? _"It wasn't anybody's fault," he contradicted her. "But… I said I'd do whatever I could to help you, and I didn't. And I'm sorry I failed." It was hard to apologize, harder to admit failure. But he had meant his promise – and Ranma Saotome kept promises. 

Ryouga, unexpectedly, started walking again. "It's not _your_ fault," she repeated. "I knew it was impossible, but I risked your life anyway." She walked faster than before.

He jogged a little to catch up with her, falling into step just behind her. "You just won't stop, will you?" 

Ryouga didn't answer.

"It's always you. Never let anyone else try anything, it's always Ryouga, a one-man island…"

"One-woman island, you mean," Ryouga interrupted.

Ranma dismissed that with a wave. "Doesn't matter…"

"How can you say that?" Ryouga asked, anger spilling into her voice. "How can you – of _all_ people – say that doesn't matter?"

"It doesn't! Look, I've been stuck too, I'm sure we'll find another way to cure you-"

"And what if we don't?"

"We'll…"

"You can't say that… but I know what I'll do." 

"Ryouga, suicide's not-"

She whirled, suddenly, and in a flurry of pink hair Ryouga was facing Ranma. They were almost nose-to-nose – would have been if it weren't for their height difference. He barely avoided walking into her, but managed to stop just before impact. Ryouga didn't move, not even to flinch. "Suicide… it's kinda like a cheat, isn't it? I've almost died enough times now to realize that it wouldn't really solve anything except making you feel bad and trapping me as a girl forever in hell. Besides, my ancestors must be protecting me, because no matter how many times I try I just can't kill myself. So…" she blushed faintly, smiled even less noticeably. "I shouldn't make the same mistake twice…"

Ranma had been wondering why she wasn't backing away from their close proximity, but at least now that was explained.

Because while it was a very light touch, that was most definitely a kiss…

***  
  
~Mordain

AN: I don't feel like commenting on this. It should be self-explanatory! Ja!


	17. Surprises

Disclaimer: Ranma ½ is property of Viz and the creative genius Rumiko Takahashi. Go them. I just play with the characters, no harm meant.

Warnings: If you can't figure it out, there are Ranma/Ryouga-chan type things in this chapter. Kinda. You'll see. Angstyish.

Note: Please give me your email addresses with reviews so I can reply! I mean, if it's something like "Yay!" I don't know what to respond to that (tho' I definitely appreciate it, thanks everyone, ^_^), but when someone wants Ryouga to get pregnant, I'd like to answer. Or if you have questions about certain portions of the fic… read my profile for responses if you left a comment that I wanted to respond to but no email address… anyway, on to the fic!

It's a bit early. I couldn't help myself, this needed to be posted. This is probably too late. Anyway, 3.03 might be out in a week, but don't hold your breath. I have yet to get CPR certification.

***

**_Part Three, Chapter Two: Surprises_**

Ranma stumbled back several steps, eyes wide in shock. He very nearly fell down, his mind not wanting to concentrate on anything, much less mundane matters such as balance.  
  


Ryouga watched him worriedly as he literally reeled in shock. "Are you alright?"  
  


Ranma stared at nothing for a few more seconds. "Me?" he said, incredulously. "Am *I* alright? Ryouga, what… what's wrong with *you*?!"  
  


She sighed. "I knew it, you're misunderstanding…"  
  


"Misunderstand? What was there to misunderstand? You _kissed_ me!"   
  


"It was just a peck." Ryouga snapped back defensively.   
  


"Just… just!?" True, it had only been on the cheek, but…  
  


"Well, there goes that idea," she answered bitterly. "I was hoping that I was wrong about how much of an asshole you were, but I guess I wasn't after all!"  
  


Ranma managed to bring his mind back to some semblance of order when he heard the pain in Ryouga's voice, forgoing comprehension - for now - in favor of sympathy. "I… I'm sorry. I was… surprised."  
  


"Yeah," she laughed sharply, angrily. "Ha! I could tell."  
  


"I didn't mean… I just never thought…"   
  


"Never thought what? Look, I kissed you, doesn't mean I'm in love with you."  
  


"Oh." Ranma felt that he ought to have been reassured by that – but he wasn't. "So why-"  
  


"Because I like you, idiot! You were nice to me, you never treated me any differently than before, you didn't act like I was made of glass, you promised to help me and did your damndest to follow through, to the point of nearly getting *killed* - need more?" Her voice was shaking, now, and she was staring straight at the ground. "What I'm trying to say… is… when you're not being a jerk… you're a really nice guy."  
  


"Oh." He didn't know what to answer, but he was getting used to that. "I'm sorry…" he repeated, at a loss. Slowly, it began to sink in that this was serious.  
  


"Sorry for being nice? That's what I was talking about you being stupid." Ryouga glared up at him through narrowed eyelids. "But it's not an answer, not even really a reply."  
  


"An answer…?" Ranma was getting used to not knowing what to say by this point.  
  


"Yea," Ryouga snapped at him. "An answer. Just… something…" she trailed off, and when she picked up speech again it was in a murmur. "I shouldn't've done what I did… and… you probably hate me now… but… I don't want to dance around this, I just want to know… even if I don't expect you to think of my as anything more than… someone to be ashamed of…"  
  


"I… I… wouldn't think that!" He said didn't mean to say it so forcefully, but it just happened anyway.   
  


She looked up, slowly. "What?" It was Ryouga's turn to be disbelieving.  
  


"I don't hate you." he hesitated. "I just don't know what I think…"  
  


"I do…"  
  


Ranma shook his head. "How could you?" He faltered for a moment, lapsing into thought instead of words. It was true – _It's not like I've ever considered… _"Give me some time before you demand an answer, at least."  
  


"Time…" her eyes widened. "You're actually thinking about it?"  
  


Ranma fell back into the increasingly familiar feeling of confusion. "Don't you want me to?"  
  


"Well…" A pink flush started to creep up her cheeks. "I said I did, didn't I… I just never thought that you _would._"  
  


"I'm not promising anything. But I won't hate you. I just need… time."  
  


"How much time?" Ryouga sighed, suddenly realizing what this probably meant. _His track record isn't very good with matters of the heart…_ "How much time?" she repeated, weakly. "A year? Two?" her voice strengthened somewhat. _I don't want that! _"I'm just going to be the fifth girl you don't want, aren't I? Look, just say no now and I won't -"  
  


"Do you want me to say no without knowing what I feel?" Ranma didn't know where he was going with this, but he had to say something, had to snap her out of the depression that she seemed determined to retreat to like it was an old friend. _Which it probably __is…_  
  


"Do you think there's a chance that you will ever answer anything _other_ than no?" Ryouga countered harshly, bitterly as darkness closed over her eyes. "I don't want to be hanging on your decision for years, Ranma."  
  


"If I just say no, then what's the point in any of this?"  
  


Ryouga stared at him. "I can't believe you're taking this seriously!"  
  


Ranma was frustrated, confused, and tired - a bad mix. But stirred in with it all was a kind of fear that was alien and irrational. "Aren't you? Did you kiss me when you weren't serious? Because if you didn't, then it wasn't any different from Mikado!"  
  


The redness faded off of Ryouga's cheeks to be replaced by the fire of anger in her eyes. Anger was easy. "Don't compare me to that idiot!"  
  


"Why shouldn't I, if you weren't serious?"  
  


"I was serious, I like you! Do you know how *hard* it was to say that?" Her eyes were wide, tears brimming in the corners, Ranma could see for the first time now. "I just don't want to be given any false hope! Nothing's going to come from this and I know it," she finished, bitterly.  
  


"How do you know that?"  
  


All emotion drained out of Ryouga's face, replaced by blank incomprehension. "I… I… how could anything…?"  
  


Ranma sighed. "I don't know what I feel right now. I haven't even given the idea any thought. But you came to a decision, so I should too. Give me the same amount of time that it took you – since you returned to Nerima. That's been… what, about a month?"  
  


"But…"  
  


"Why are you arguing? Aren't you the one who started it?"  
  


Ryouga didn't understand how Ranma could sound so reasonable when her mind refused to grasp it. "I… I did… but I never thought that you'd actually _think_ about it!"  
  


"Of course I need to think about it," he continued, still in that damnably reasonable tone. Little did Ryouga know that it was taking all the control he had to stop his knees from quaking. "There's no way I could come to a real decision this fast. If I said no that wouldn't be fair. But neither is if fair to ask you to wait forever – you've given it thought and told me how you feel. No one else has done that." He paused, and thought for a moment. "Give me a month."  
  


"I – I never said I loved you," said Ryouga, trying one last time.   
  


"I know." Ranma smiled. "To be honest, I'm glad you didn't, because if you did, I'm not sure I would believe you. But I *can* believe you like me." The smile turned into a grin, and before he could continue, Ryouga smacked him – gently.   
  


"Egomaniac."  
  


"So you're not angry?"  
  


"I should be asking _you_ that…" she answered quietly.   
  


Suddenly there was a pressure on her shoulders, and she looked up, startled, to see Ranma standing in front of her, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders, his expression almost scared. Without saying a word, and moving slowly enough that she could get out if she wanted to, he drew her into an awkward, loose embrace.  
  


Ryouga was frozen, unable to move or, indeed, able to do much more than stand there, aware of Ranma's arms wrapped lightly around her. Her mind went fuzzy. Bubbles very nearly appeared in the background – but didn't, of course, because that would be impossible…  
  


Then Ranma let go, and took a step back. It hadn't been very long, but Ryouga wasn't sure if it had been moments or seconds that he had been holding her. Ranma stepped back, watching her carefully.  
  


"I…" he started.  
  


"If you apologize for that," Ryouga found her voice in time to cut him off. "I will… hurt you."  
  


Ranma hesitated for a moment before continuing. "I think we should stop for the night. It's late, and we did just get out of the hospital."  
  


Ryouga looked at him suspiciously. "Yeah, I'm sure you need your beauty sleep, Saotome," she responded wryly.   
  


Ranma let a befuddled expression slide over his face. "What?" Whether he was actually confused or not, Ryouga couldn't be certain.   
  


Ryouga sighed and waved absently, dismissing the statement. _It was a stupid joke anyway._ "Never mind." She squinted into the forest that lined the road. "We could probably stop safely enough. But we need to get further tomorrow."  
  


"Right, right…" Ranma agreed. "We should try to get back to Nerima soon…"  
  


"Yeah," Ryouga nodded resolutely. A destination was always the best thing. It was something to concentrate on, even if you never got there.  
  


***  
  


There was a distinct feeling of embarrassment in the air as they set up a rude camp in a clearing not far from the road. The forest was very tame so close to civilization. Ryouga found herself a soft spot in the dirt and tried to get comfortable. She hated camping without proper equipment, although she'd had to several times before. It was uncomfortable, and usually a pain to get more supplies. _But that was because I could never *find* a place to get the supplies. That problem, at least, I won't have to worry about anymore… _  
  


She sighed and shifted again, this time onto her side. _So much serious thinking while I laid there for a week, bored out of my mind, but… now it's falling to pieces around me even while it __worked._  
  


The prospect of an actual relationship with Ranma was intimidating. While it had just been an abstract thought in her head it was a relatively simple idea – the feeling was so clear when it was just her and her mind. And darkened with hopelessness. But when he had actually agreed to give it some thought, it was as if the world and her ideas of it had shattered. She could tell how uncomfortable he felt with the idea – despite everything, and how she had no idea, but he honestly did think of her as a guy. It was gratifying, but she'd had a week with almost nothing to do but think about the harsh reality of being a girl forever, and she'd managed to come to grips with it, sort of.   
  


It wasn't an entirely happy prospect, but it wasn't the end of the world, either, she had finally convinced herself. _At least I'm human. Being P-chan forever… _she shuddered. _I would've just let someone have a roast pork dinner eventually – probably sooner rather than __later._  
  


Ryouga shivered, involuntarily. There was no help for it, but some part of her still screamed at the decision even though there were worse options.  
  


She shifted again, managed to get more comfortable. She was exhausted, physically and mentally, to the point where even her thoughts started to slip away. She started to drift off… and was interrupted, much to her annoyance, by an excited shout from Ranma before actually managing to fall asleep.  
  


***  
  


Ranma was more befuddled than anything else, despite understanding that Ryouga was, indeed, somehow serious. If asked before what the most unlikely thing that he could think of to happen was, he would _never_ have said Ryouga developing a crush on him, because that was too unlikely for his imagination to handle – even when he considered that Ryouga was a girl now, apparently forever.  
  


_He – she – what the heck should I think of him as? _Oddly enough, that was the raging debate currently circling through Ranma's mind. _It's Ryouga, I know that… but… boy or girl? Weird to think of him as a guy _now_, but weird to think of him as a girl, too. But… I said I'd give him – her? argh – an answer, which means I have to figure out my feelings on the matter in a month. _  
  


It seemed that the prospect of being the object of romantic affection from someone who he had, and to a certain extent still did, thought of as male should creep him out more than it was. And yet - it wasn't the first time, even if every other time it had been his girl form that was the object of their 'affections'. At least Ryouga knew who he was, curse and all, and wasn't a total pervert. The fact that Ryouga had kissed Ranma, and not Ranma-chan, was slightly reassuring. He hated it when people liked his girl form, because that attraction was ever only physical. And not even physical to him – the attraction was to something that was just a curse. It really did make him ill, sometimes, but not because of the gender of the person who was attracted to 'her'.  
  


He wondered if that translated over to Ryouga. After all, the body that was now permanently Ryouga's was also just a curse. _But it's not *me* that's attracted… _It was another reason *not* to consider her request, but he couldn't take it back now and wasn't sure he wanted to.  
  


It was an interesting dilemma, but one that Ranma didn't want to think about. He shook his head and grabbed the bag of Ryouga's belongings, upending it on the ground. He needed something to distract him, since he couldn't fall asleep even though he was exhausted, and never would if these thoughts wouldn't leave him alone. It took a bit of shaking to empty out the bag, but after a moment a ball of what appeared to be tent fabric fell out and thumped heavily on the dirt. He began to unravel it, glad for something somewhat constructive to do that was mundane enough so hopefully his mind would stop whirling and let him sleep.  
  


With a minor amount of difficulty, he unraveled the mass from the ripped section of tent. There were bits of the metal rods still attached to it, twisted and snapped at the ends. He tossed it away. _Useless…_  
  


He found a random bit of cloth sticking out of the remaining unidentifiable mass and pulled. It came out with minimal resistance, revealing itself to be one of Ryouga's shirts – one of the old yellow and black ones. Most of one, anyway. It was ripped and missing part of a sleeve, but wearable. He folded it and laid it to one side. _We can fix that, won't take too much work. _  
  


He pulled out another bit of cloth to find half of one of his old pairs of pants. He inspected it, but only for a moment - one the legs was entirely missing. He tossed it away and reached for another random item from the lump, but something had fallen out of the lump and caught his attention. It glittered in the moonlight. He picked it up.   
  


And involuntarily shouted in surprise.  
  


Ryouga rolled over to look at him through bleary eyelids. "What's your problem?" she griped. "I'm trying to sleep…"  
  


"I think you should look at this…" Ranma held out the find to her, and after a few moments of staring at it blankly she figured out what it was.   
  


"What the-!" She rolled upright and scooted closer, now fully awake. "This is…"  
  


Ryouga didn't have to say what it was. It was quite clearly the broken-off spout of a small, and very ornate, teakettle.  
  


***  
  


"Ryouga, you're wearing a trench in the dirt. Keep going and I won't be able to get you out," said Ranma, amusement fighting with worry and tiredness in his tone. Ryouga was currently pacing a circle around the two kettle fragments that innocently reflected the light of dawn from their spot on the ground. They had almost precisely half the kettle. There was the spout, of course, and also almost precisely half of the pot portion, smoothly broken right down the middle. They glimmered more brightly than the dim light could account for – even broken, there was something distinctly magical about it.  
  


Ryouga stopped in her pacing to look at them, again. She sighed. "But… I don't know what to do…"  
  


Ranma shrugged. "We do what we were plannin' to do in the first place. Go back to Nerima. When we're there we can talk to the ghoul about the kettle. She might be able to remake the spell from these."  
  


Ryouga snorted. "Yea, in return for you marrying Shampoo…"  
  


"We'll deal with that when we get there." He changed the subject. "Go to sleep, Ryouga. You haven't gotten five minutes. I shouldn't've shown you…" Ranma leaned against the tree he was sitting in front of and closed his eyes. "Besides, I'm tired."  
  


He heard the sound of Ryouga sitting down heavily, and obviously reluctantly if her exaggerated sigh was any indication. "Maybe we should go back to Horaisan and look for the rest of it."  
  


Ranma snorted, not opening his eyes. "We'd never find it. Besides, we've got no money, no food. We can hunt for a couple days, but I don't want to be out here like this any longer than I have to."   
  


Ryouga sighed again, more resignedly this time. A heavy weight on his side startled him, and he opened his eyes to see that she was sitting next to him, resting her head on his shoulder.   
  


"We could find jobs…" she tried, but her tone made it obvious that even she didn't expect that to be a viable solution.   
"Even if we did find them all we couldn't put them back together on our own," he answered, wearily.  
  


Ryouga's only response was a light snore. He looked at her, incredulously. Sure enough, she had fallen asleep, leaning against him.   
  


Ranma didn't move. _Can't exactly push her off… _He shook his head. _Do I have a girlfriend now, or what? _It was highly confusing. _I don't know what he – she – gotta figure that out – wants of this. I said I'd give it a month to decide… but what do we do up 'till then? _He looked at her, her face finally gone peaceful in sleep. She was cute, he had to admit that. But still distinctly Ryouga. It was something in the face. Feminized, softer, but still the same. _Cute __though…_  
  


He blinked in surprise, still being careful not to move. _Cute… now that's a word I'd never have thought of using for Ryouga before… _he sighed.   
  


Ryouga's reaction to the kettle pieces wasn't surprising, but was slightly worrying. She wanted to go back to Horaisan, even if she realized that Ranma wouldn't let her go no matter how much she asked.   
  


The boy-turned-girl seemed to be constantly hinging on the edge of mental breakdown, and earlier had been worse than most. Showing her the pieces of the kettle had been a bad idea - he had known that the instant she saw them and her eyes widened in shock and hope so painful that it made the sympathetic pain ache in his throat again. He felt like he had slashed her open with a dull knife and rubbed salt inside the wounds. Pacing had done a lot to calm her down.  
  


_Our agreement is probably the worst thing, now. He's got hope, even if it's not much – but when he kissed me he was giving in to being female forever. And… I made the agreement for the wrong reasons. _He had known it as he said it, and it was clearer now. _How much of what I said was just because I was frightened of making a real decision or hurting him? _It came as a slight surprise, but he truly didn't want to hurt Ryouga. Personally, he wasn't sure why, even though there were certainly reasons, not the least of which was to keep her from running away and getting herself killed.  
  


_I said I'd think about it and I keep promises. _That was a certainty, but there were so many doubts stuffed in with the promise that he didn't know if keeping it was even a good idea any more, or if it would just do the opposite of what he had hoped to avoid by making it in the first place.  
  


Eventually, he fell asleep. Every now and then, for sanity's sake, the body had a veto on the mind.  
  


***  
  


~Mordain

AN: Narf! 

Please excuse the silliness. Mordain's mind has temporarily shut down. To resume normal function, please submit a review. Thank you.

*fzzzzzt beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep*


	18. Grace

Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma ½. You're gonna have to use your imagination for a wittier one than that. It gets the job done, anyway. 

Notes: Apologies for the long wait. Things have been hectic, and I didn't want to post something that I couldn't really put enough effort into. It's still short, however, gomen!

Thanks to Archmagesilvento for his continuing help with this story. It's certainly keeping things interesting...

***

**_

Part Three, Chapter Three: Grace

_**

Mint woke to a pleasant warmth and a great deal of pain.

He cracked open his eyes to see a blur that he nevertheless managed to recognize instantly as Herb, and after an additional moment he identified the warmth as healing energy, the softer manifestation of Herb's mastery of chi. 

"Herb-sa... sama?" he managed to croak.

The warmth immediately cut off, and Mint regretted speaking.

"Good, you're conscious," said Herb in a clipped voice, turning away. 

Mint groaned and sat up, trying to ignore the spinning in his head but it was futile. He slumped back down, clenching his eyes closed against the sudden burst of nausea.

"Don't try to move," Herb snapped at him, but beneath the irritation there was a definite note of concern.

Mint didn't try to move again, but he did turn his head to one side to watch Herb. 

The dragon had moved to another, very familiar, figure who Mint could barely see out of the corner of his eye. He nearly gasped when he saw Lime's condition, and immediately understood why Herb had stopped healing him. 

He also wondered – what had happened to do all of this? Herb wasn't in top shape either, Mint saw easily, and it took a lot to dishevel her. Mint wished that he had fully seen and understood what had happened on that mountaintop.

But it had obviously been devastating. Lime was... Mint wanted to look away from the tiger-boy. He looked like he was almost dead, and that was the most optimistic description that Mint could think of. A more descriptive, but more disheartening, one would be that the looked like death would be the preferable option.

And then his mind immediately came up with the question, one that should have logically followed more quickly – _how badly was I hurt, that Herb-sama tended to me first? _Mint shuddered, and closed his eyes. Herb had started to heal Lime, and it seemed like a very good time to take a nap.

Mint woke up again an indeterminate amount of time later. It was night, and it must have been a while since his previous awakening. He was feeling better – and starving. He sat up, pleased that he could stifle the dizziness that came with movement, and glanced around. Herb was asleep, looking exhausted; Lime was also asleep. They were alive but looked worse than Mint felt, and that meant that they were probably unconscious. 

Mint vaguely recognized his surroundings as the same place he had been upon his first awakening, a clearing in a forest near a rocky outcropping that provided some protection from the elements. It wasn't quite a cave, but looked like it could protect them from rain at the very least. 

Mint crawled over to Herb to check on her. She was showing obvious signs of fatigue, deep lines etched into her face and bags underneath her eyes that were only beginning to smooth out in sleep. 

Suddenly her eyes snapped open, and bright red eyes with cat-slit pupils that shone in the moonlight looked at him, confusedly for a moment, then narrowed, dark and disapproving. 

"Go to sleep, Mint," she ordered in a tone that was authoritative even through the sleepiness, and Mint instinctually obeyed, practically throwing himself back onto the soft spot in the ground that had partially molded itself to the shape of his body. 

"I... I'm sorry, Herb-sama..."

"Don't be. Just go to sleep, let yourself heal." The voice, so laden with exhaustion and underlying pain, was unusually soft. Mint hastily closed his eyes and willed himself to go to sleep, certain that he would never be able to attain that state again for hours at least.

Of course, he was asleep less than five minutes later. His body knew what it needed, even if his mind didn't.

***  
  


In the end, it was the sunrise that woke Herb.

"Go- good morning, Herb-sama!" Mint greeted her haltingly as she carefully opened her eyes. She was awake, rested, but still feeling drained from the great expenditure of energy from the day before that had been necessary to heal herself and her two underlings. She sat up.

Mint had somehow managed to light a fire and was roasting three squirrels over it on a spit. He prodded one of the rodents and shook his head. "If you're hungry, Herb-sama, I am sorry, but breakfast is not quite finished cooking yet."

"I thought I told you to rest."

Mint immediately looked contrite. "I apologize, Herb-sama," he said, lowering his head. "But... I was hungry... and squirrels are easy to catch, so it was really no effort at all!" It was pointless to say that they had lost all of their possessions, including money, in the blur that was the destruction of Horaisan. They retained their clothing, but that was about all – and even it was looking tattered. Herb's armor had survived, and that was the only item of any real value they had, so it was but a minor worry.

Herb just shook her head. "Very well."

"Are you feeling better, Herb-sama?"

Herb waved a hand negligently in his direction. "As well as I ever will be, trapped in this body!" she spat, unintentionally bringing up the real reason for the dark feeling that filled her.

"You shouldn't be so upset, Herb-sama," Mint said, obviously trying to consoling but missing wildly. Herb grimaced, torn between the instinct to slice Mint in half for his obtuseness and the knowledge that it really wasn't his fault. Then he spoke again.

"Oh, Herb-sama! I just remembered!" Herb looked up at Mint curiously. "When I was out hunting," he went on, "I found something that I thought might interest you!" He reached behind his back and picked up two shining fragments of metal. Herb's eyes widened.

Mint mistook the expression in her eyes. He smiled, certain that this had cheered Herb up, and so it surprised him a great deal when Herb reached over to him and knocked the two kettle fragments out of his hands, letting them fall to the ground and roll several feet away. "Herb-sama?" he asked, confused.

"Do not show those to me again!" Herb shouted, clearly angry now. She took a deep breath, tried to calm herself. "The kettle is destroyed now. It is of no use to collect pieces! Some other cure will have to be found." She settled back, trying to relax but still obviously agitated. One hand twitched as if to form an energy attack to disintegrate the pieces of metal, but nothing appeared. She was still too drained despite her apparent energy.

"I-I'm sorry, Herb-sama..." Mint apologized with wide eyes. But he clearly didn't understand.

"Don't be sorry. Finish what you were doing. I will be resting." With that clipped statement, Herb closed her eyes and turned away, but the tenseness in her shoulders didn't diminish. 

Mint blinked, confused.

***  
  


The next time Herb awoke, Lime was awake as well and it was considerably later in the day, nearly evening. They noticed her very quickly – they had been casting nervous glances in her direction every minute for several hours now. Neither of them had dared to touch her. The thought of her wrath if they did was daunting, and besides, their fingers twitched nervously at the thought of touching a woman's body far too much to do more than wake and annoy her.

Herb was silent. She ate a roast squirrel, her pride obviously taking a blow for it, and stood, announcing that they were leaving. This was all within half an hour of waking.

"Where are we going, Herb-sama?" Lime asked.

Herb didn't answer. "We are leaving this area."

They jumped to their feet. If Herb didn't want to say, pushing the matter could be dangerous. But before he followed Herb, Mint paused, and picked up the two pieces of metal that still lay on the ground. Maybe they would prove useful in the future.

***  
  
"What's the matter with Herb-sama?" Lime asked Mint in a whisper as they trailed a safe distance behind. 

"She seems grumpy," Mint answered. "I think it's a... a female problem." He spoke the last two words so quietly that even he barely heard them, and he still turned slightly pink.

"Oh..." Lime reddened, and nervously twitched his thumbs together. He changed the subject abruptly, speaking in a much louder voice as if to cover up the previous embarrassment. "Are those two still alive?" a hint of anger was showing in his voice now.

Mint shrugged. "I don't know..." He brightened suddenly, hit with a rare idea. "Ah! Maybe Herb-sama is tracking them down! I haven't smelled them here, so they much be elsewhere!"

Lime nodded, slowly. "If they're not dead... they'll wish they were."

Mint nodded as well. "Agreed." He grinned toothily.

***  
  


Herb rolled her eyes and tried to ignore the attempts at holding whispered conversation behind her. _When will those two figure it out!_ Quite possibly the most aggravating part of being stuck as female was the inability of Mint and Lime to get it through their skulls that she hadn't been _born_ that way.   
The irritation towards those two was easily diverted towards another pair, however. Her fingers curled into talons at the thought of... _those_ two. She refused to think their names. She only knew the names incidentally, anyway. 

However - destination was uncertain, at the moment. To continue onward, looking for another cure, or to search for the two humans, to either find proof of their death or exact revenge? Herb didn't like the word, but if ever a situation merited it, this one did.

A faint memory of a half-whispered phrase suddenly sounded in her ears and Herb nearly stumbled to a halt, stunned. 

_"There is another cure... but I think you would rather have the kettle."_ Those weren't the precise words, Herb knew. But it was the meaning.

_That old witch! She said she knew of something else... but why did she say that I would rather use the kettle? Perhaps this other one is more difficult to find, or guarded by fearsome enemies. But I fear nothing, and I will defeat all enemies in my path! She should have told me! _She began to walk faster, then run. She wished for the energy to fly, but even running was a strain. A necessary one – undoubtedly the other two would soon be after the same prize, and there was no point in hoping for their deaths now. Another confrontation that might result in the destruction of the other cure as well would be highly undesirable. 

Mint and Lime were startled by the sudden increase in pace, and fell behind for a moment. Herb had vanished, and the rustling noise of her movement was getting more distant rapidly.

"Herb-sama! Wait up!"

Herb heard them and almost didn't let them catch up, but after a few moments she slowed. They came bursting out of the foliage around her and very nearly bolted past, but managed to stop before losing her again. 

"Herb-sama!" Mint protested between deep breaths. Normally he could run for hours at a much faster pace, but a combination of injury and surprise had winded him much faster than normal. 

"Why did you start running, Herb-sama? Where are we going?" 

"Nerima," she answered them curtly. 

"That town...?" Mint looked confused. 

"That town," she confirmed curtly. "I advise that you keep up, this time." She gave them another moment to catch their breaths, then started walking again, not quite running but certainly moving at a good clip. A moment later, Mint and Lime were following her at a short distance, looking mildly bewildered but resigned to never quite knowing what precisely was in their master's head. 

Herb ignored them entirely. She had brought them along for assistance, but at the moment they were useless. She wouldn't abandon them, of course, but there was no point in explaining anything either. Besides, her mind was preoccupied with other thoughts. 

_The kettle may be destroyed, but there's still a cure out there somewhere! And if that old Amazon won't let me have it... I'll take it!_

***  
  
~Mordain

Translation: Herb-sama – Master Herb. I felt that the –sama just felt more natural, particularly since they use it so much...

AN: Sorry, but I had to cut away from Ranma and Ryouga for a little while at least. We'll get back to them, don't worry... anyway, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Please review, and ja ne!

PS: Great thanks to all the people who reviewed, particularly those who somehow found the fic recently, even though I've been very slow about updates. You guys really helped inspire me to finish this chapter, which has been sitting on my hard drive unfinished for months now... now to decide which version of "Of Alternate Realities..." 12 is the one I'm going to use, or to see if I can wrest another chapter from this one this week...


	19. Pride

Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma ½ or any of the characters and settings contained within this work of fanfiction. Rumiko Takahashi owns 'em, and Viz owns the manga and anime. Mine is manga based, so I give the larger portion of credit to Ms. Takahashi. 

Notes: Er, none really. Sorry for keeping the focus off of Ranma and Ryouga for so long, but since no one seems to mind this too much, I guess it's okay ^_^.

***

Part Three, Chapter Four – Pride

Akane felt like pacing. Or screaming. Or something. The patients that had been found in the wreckage of Horaisan were gone. The news didn't say anything more than that – in fact it didn't even say that. It simply said that they weren't being held at the hospital anymore. The implication was that they had been discharged, but no one had yet gone to pick them up and Akane doubted that the hospital would just let them wander away. 

She was aggravated. _How like Ranma to just wander away without telling anyone! Baka! Bakabakabaka… Ryouga better not be hurt! _She was mildly surprised to find herself worried about the pink-haired girl, but it was easily explained by the fact that the news programs had mentioned that it was the girl who was in more serious condition. They had said very little about the two patients at all, however.

If she weren't so certain that the two were headed home, she would have run out there herself and found them. And likely throttled one of them into orbit.

Or at least that what she wanted to do. Akane sagged, slumping down in her chair like a rag doll – or someone who was very, very tired. She would never admit it when they got back, but she was worried about them. At least they were alive. She tried to console herself with that. But there was something else that worried her, something that she couldn't put a finger on. 

Akane shook her head and headed upstairs. She was tired. Not much had happened, but it had been an exhausting two days…

***  
In the morning, when she opened her eyes to stare blankly at the ceiling for several minutes, Akane didn't feel much better than she had the night before. _What happened to sleep easing the worries of the night before, _she griped mentally before pulling herself out of bed, staring blankly in the mirror for several minutes, and finally dressing for class. She ran out of the house without breakfast, not really wanting to deal with her family right now.  

The walk to class was a blur, done mostly by simple reflex. She stared at her feet. If she didn't look up there was no way of knowing that there wasn't another person following the same path…

"Akane?" 

She looked up sharply. A female voice saying her name…

Akane deflated slightly when the image of a familiar girl with a ponytail of light brown hair came into focus. "Good morning…" she greeted absentmindedly. She had reached the school without really realizing it.

Yuka raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong with you?"

Akane shook her head firmly and pulled her attention fully into the conversation. _Snap out of it… _she chastised herself before answering. "Nothing."

Her friend didn't look convinced. "Right…"

The issue wasn't pushed, much to Akane's relief. 

For all of ten seconds. Akane winced. 

"Do you expect me to believe that?" Yuka exploded, as if the words had been a bomb with a very short fuse. "You've been out of it for days. Worried?"

"No," Akane insisted, tightening her grip on the handle of her bookbag even as she forced her facial muscles into relaxation and smiled. "What would I be worried about?" He gaze slipped off the face of her friend and towards the gate of the school, where students swarmed in. She stared blankly for a moment.

A figure, not much taller than the stream of students but very easily differentiable from them, walked with a purposeful stride along the street on the other side of the entrance to the school. It looked definitively familiar.

Akane blinked. "Who…?"

Yuka, not sure if she was the one being addressed, turned and looked, but she was a second too late. There was nothing to see other than the vaguely familiar faces of her classmates as they flowed past. She scrutinized the crowd for specific faces, but it was sadly easy to tell, since every figure was draped in one of two outfits of similar coloring. "Is he back?"

Akane ignored her friend's question. She started to run for the gate, but turned around and tossed her bookbag at Yuka, who caught it, surprised. 

"I'll be back later! There's something I have to take care of, first!" She hiked up the sleeves of her uniform in obvious preparation for running. This just befuddled Yuka more.

Before she could try to ask again, Akane was out of the gates and gone. The black-haired girl looked at the bag in confusion for a moment before turning to go to class. No point in being late herself, and she needed to let others know what had happened…

***  
Akane pumped her arms faster. The streets were crowded at this time of the morning, making it impossible to search for anyone, so Akane ran rather than searched, following the most likely path.

She skidded to a halt in front of a very familiar restaurant. It wasn't open this early in the morning, but there were definite signs of activity inside, and several voices were audible even though no words were discernable over the noise of the street. She hesitated before opening the door. It might not be any of her concern… but… if that person was back…

She swung open the door and stepped boldly inside, face set.

Only to narrowly avoid getting nailed in the forehead by a porcelain bowl. The dish shattered against the door, and Akane sighed in relief, thankful for her good reflexes. Then she was drawn back to reality by the pressure of sudden attention.

The six people in the restaurant stared at her. Well, one set of eyes stared at a tall potted plant to her left, but it was the thought that counted and since Mousse's glasses were perched on top of his head instead of over his eyes he probably thought it was her, at least…

It was like a strange, distorted déjà-vu. She wondered if she ought to have caught the bowl. After all, she would've been severely annoyed at Ranma if he hadn't caught her when she was the object being tossed about in the Nekohanten like an unwanted sack of potatoes… or dish. 

The cloaked figure made a noise of irritation. That was easily the most bothersome of the gazes leveled at her. 

"What are you doing here?" she asked, remembering her original purpose. The cloak may be concealing, but it was also very conspicuous when worn on the streets of Tokyo in bright hours of early morning.

The shortest figure, perched on a table that had been swept clean, rapped the butt of her cane on the table. "We're closed," Cologne informed her imperiously. "Please leave." There was little that was polite about the statement other than it's phrasing.

"I don't want food." Akane steadied her own gaze at the hooded figure, narrowing her eyes. "You're back. I want to know what happened."

For a moment there was no answer. "I have nothing to say to you, other than that I hope the two you are looking for are dead."

"You bastard…" Akane tightened her hand into a fist at her side. She cleared her throat. The words hadn't been audible. "They're not."

Now she was regarded with more interest. The cloaked figure leaned back, slightly but significantly, greatly lessening the intimidation factor of her posture. "They aren't?" 

Akane shook her head firmly. "No. It's all over the news. No names were given but they're alive, I'm sure of it."

The two boys who flanked the taller, cowled figure glanced at each other. The taller of the pair grinned, pleased in a fearsome way with the news. Akane recognized him as the one who had kidnapped her initially and suppressed the urge to yell at him, or attack him, or something even less wise. 

Shampoo, behind Cologne, looked pleased. Mousse looked distinctly irritated, but Shampoo smacked him over the head for some unknown reason, startling him out of it. The duck-boy's glasses flew off of his head and clattered on the ground. He immediately dropped to the floor, groping about blindly to search for them. 

Cologne snorted. "Of course they are alive. Something like that would not kill son-in-law. But…" The diminutive Amazon matriarch thought for a moment. "Are you certain that there are two survivors?"

Akane, slightly confused, nodded.

"Perhaps the other is not the girl…" Cologne mused. "But that matters little." She waved the question off and turned back to the other visitors. 

The cowled figure's opinion on the matter was impossible to determine. Akane got the impression of a scowl, somehow. "They are worthy opponents," she admitted, grudgingly, in a rumbling voice. It was impossible to determine the gender of the person, but Akane remembered it being identified as female earlier and relied on that assessment. 

"I do not have what you want," Cologne informed her. It sounded as if she were repeating the statement, and with a distinct air of irritation, too. 

The hooded woman – Herb, Akane suddenly recalled the name - turned back towards the Amazon trio. "You tricked me, old woman, and I won't forget that. But…" she shook her head. "I will search on my own, then."

The two boys who resembled a tiger and a wolf glanced at each other. They seemed to want to say something, but followed their leader as she started to leave. 

"Wait!" Akane stepped in front of them before they reached the door and spread out her arms, stopping them. "What happened?"

Herb looked down at her. Some light made it inside the hood, faintly outlining some facial features for the first time. The expression revealed was very, very angry. Akane took an involuntary step back.

"They destroyed the cure, then destroyed the mountain in an attempt to defeat me," Herb summarized before pushing past Akane and stepping up to the door.

The door opened – but no one stepped outside.

"Now that was a pretty shitty way of putting it," complained Ranma, crossing his arms over his chest. Ryouga, behind him, slapped a hand over her forehead and groaned. 

***  
~Mordain

AN: Short chapter… and such a long wait for it, too. Not the worst I've ever done… there would be an additional 1,036 words if I thought that the conversation I had written between Ranma and Ryouga on the walk back to Nerima was worth including… but it's not. Anyway, please review! I'd like to know who's still reading this ^^;; thank you for putting up with me, everyone who's reading!

PS: Alternate title for this chapter that I decided was just too stupid and didn't fit my theme: 'The Return of the Travelers' (I'm such a geek). Yeah, I've actually got a theme for my titles, although most of them probably don't make any sense to anyone but me.


	20. Disconsolation

Disclaimer: I don't own, or claim to own, Ranma ½ or any part of it. This fanfic is mine but it's not very much, really.

Notes: Keeping them short: a) I'm slow, b) this chapter immediately follows the one previous so reread it if you're confused, and c) as always, many thanks to archmagesilvento. I should give him co-author credit or something.

***

**_

Part Three, Chapter Five: Disconsolation

_**

Akane groaned. She followed Ryouga by only a moment and only because of her brief astonishment over their appearance – both the fact that they were there at all and their physical look. Jeans and somewhat ragged sweaters didn't quite suit them. 

She could almost feel Herb, behind her, growl in anger. A second later the Musk emperor did growl, much to no one's surprise. Ryouga just rolled her eyes, looking pained and exasperated more than angry. Akane wondered if between them was the best place to be standing at the moment, and decided probably at the same time she also decided she didn't care in the slightest. 

"No fighting!" she barked, holding up her hands. Ranma was more likely to fight than Ryouga, who seemed mildly embarrassed, unless the red tinge to her cheeks was a cold. Akane delayed her confusion for the time being. 

Unfortunately she had little if any effect on the three who were most likely to actually start violence, but luckily enough Herb chose to simply make a noise of irritation and dislike rather than a movement of aggression. 

Akane dropped her arms, wondering what crazy thought process had prompted her to attempt to keep the peace, but there wasn't much time to think. 

"What are you doing here?" Contrary to his bland expression, the antagonism in Ranma's voice was obvious. He narrowed his eyes, ever so slightly but enough to punctuate his words. 

"What are you doing alive?" Herb retorted, a smirk as audible in her words as any emotion that Ranma's contained. She yanked back her hood almost violently and glared at them, as if the implication she could put in her voice wasn't enough. Somehow the soft feminine features that were revealed this way startled Akane.

"That's our business."

"Same to any question of yours," Herb answered, and that seemed to be end of it. For her at least.

"I, on the other hand, would disagree." 

Everyone turned to look at Cologne who no one had expected to speak. She generally didn't get involved in things that she didn't have to. 

"What do you mean, ghoul?" Surprisingly enough it was Ryouga who spoke, and bitingly too. 

The Amazon ignored her. "I think there is more business to discuss. Perhaps something that both of you, as well as myself, might find interesting. We'll start with a certain object you carry, son-in-law." 

Ranma and Ryouga had stepped fully into the restaurant by now, and the door slid closed behind them with a remarkably final snap. Akane rolled her eyes, wishing for a knife to cut the tension.

"What object?" If Ranma hadn't been one of the worst liars in Japan he might have gotten away with it; as it was there was just a touch of defensiveness in his voice, something in the tone of the two seemingly simple words that made it quite clear that he knew exactly what was being referred to, and also betrayed surprise at the mention. 

"Stupidity does not become you. The fragments. Bring them out."

Slowly and rebelliously Ranma reached into a bag he carried at his side and pulled something out, something that gleamed in the light. He placed it gently on a table – not the one that Cologne was standing on but rather one with a more defensible position.

Akane almost didn't notice Ryouga's pained look and her speed in turning her eyes away from the shining fragments of metal that landed on the table with a heavy sound that heralded nothing but more complicated situations ahead. 

Akane couldn't know for certain but was reasonably sure of what they were, and she inhaled sharply at what they implied. Ryouga's current femininity hadn't quite registered, but now it did, and painfully too. 

_So they failed._

The pieces that Ranma produced were clearly from a teakettle that had been ripped apart by some unknown force. 

Herb's exclamation of shock was not lost, either, but what was more interesting was not hers but rather the reaction of the two boys who always flanked her – in particular the shorter one. Cologne gave him a stern look and with a highly embarrassed and fearful lowering of eyes he pulled something out of his own pocket. They landed on a table with a second, echoing series of thunks. 

"Mint!" Herb's voice was angry, not as angry as her words to Ranma had been but the margin wasn't very large at all. 

"I'm sorry, Herb-sama… but…"

Cologne was ignoring the both of them and inspecting the pieces. "Actually, it is very fortunate that he saved them," she commented, prompting every head in the room to swivel in her direction with whiplash-inducing speed.

Akane was interested in the goings-on but there were other, less blatant things happening at the same time. She edged away from the middle of the room, past Ranma who was almost oblivious to her presence at this point, and next to Ryouga who seemed ready to crumple on the floor and launch a Shishihoukodan or worse. 

Akane placed one hand on the pink-haired girl's shoulder, eliciting an almost violent jerk in reaction and a startled glance. 

Ryouga looked absolutely dejected, and this was almost making it worse. Why, Akane didn't know and didn't bother to wonder. She smiled as comfortingly as she could and patted Ryouga's shoulder consolingly. It seemed to do some good. They turned their attention back to what was going on. 

"The magic is still intact," said Cologne, seeing that all eyes were on her. 

Ryouga's visible wince to that was relatively mild, but Akane's hand was still on her shoulder and felt the shuddering that wasn't obvious, the tightening of muscles there and all along her back, as violent a reaction as any outburst.

"What do you mean?!" Herb, Ryouga, and Ranma shouted in various tones at roughly the same time after a moment's astonished silence. They exchanged angry glances at each other. Angry, and in two cases, uncertain. Almost scared, but that was impossible. Ranma was never scared, and rarely uncertain. Akane dropped her hand back to her side and took a step away. Violence now would not be stopped by her words, although she felt angry just thinking about it. 

Cologne rapped her cane noisily on the table, thinking. "Of course, the magic is useless with the kettle in so many pieces, and no normal method will suffice to repair it," she finished, managing to look thoughtful and shrewd at the same time. 

Ryouga reacted strangely to that. Akane couldn't analyze it exactly. 

"No *normal* means?" Herb pressed. 

"Or any magical means that I can think of… wait." Cologne caught herself. "There might be one," she corrected.

"One?" That was Ranma. He glanced back at Ryouga, clearly excited but the emotion was not reflected in her eyes. His eyes dimmed slightly at seeing that, but then he turned back to Cologne. "Where? How?"

Cologne held up one hand to forestall more questions. "I don't know all of the details," she said. "I will do some research on the question, however."

Ranma grinned but not as wide as might be expected. Akane was baffled again, at both of them. 

_Something's happened,_ she thought with certainty. Certainty about a fuzzy and obvious statement, but it was something to grasp hold of.

Ryouga looked away from everyone, choosing to stare at the wall instead.

"Why are you helping us like this?" Ryouga's voice was almost impossibly soft as she asked the question that no one else had thought of.

Cologne looked the pink haired girl squarely in the eyes, expression set hard into something that Akane recognized but couldn't precisely identify. It seemed out of context, somehow. "I thought you would know." Pause, dripping with overdone significance. "My interest in magical artifacts, of course. Both of you previously agreed to let me have the Kaisufuu if you succeeded. I assume that deal still holds. And if the Kaisufuu can be repaired not only will be a valuable possession but the method of repair will assist understanding of such things greatly."

It was the most obvious smoothly uttered half-truth that had ever been said. Akane wished she knew what the other half was.

***

Herb sat cross-legged on the floor, head down and expression serious in a violent sort of way. She was here grudgingly, but Cologne's suggestion hadn't really been debatable, and the promise of some miraculous restoration of a cure was too tempting to pass up. Akane had nearly forgotten all the details in the recent confusion, but from Ryouga's telling of the tale of how all this started – had it really been almost a month ago? – she remembered that Herb was cursed in much the same way as Ryouga himself. 

The situation that Cologne had almost casually suggested was a ridiculous one from any perspective except, apparently, Cologne's, and was the reason that Herb currently sat on the floor of the Tendo house, clearly disgruntled. Mint and Lime were nearby but out of immediate line of sight, and Ranma and Ryouga had retreated to another portion of the house, probably their respective rooms, to get as far apart from the newcomers as possible. And get some rest, no doubt. They had looked exhausted earlier. Akane was glad that they weren't currently there or this would be that much harder. She sighed, rubbing her eyes. Ranma always had to make things more difficult, didn't he? Ryouga too, this time at least, she admitted somewhat grudgingly. 

_Oh well. Not much to be done about it. Besides, what's *another* freeloader at this point? Okay, three, but at least they have *some* way of paying…_

Monetary compensation would only be minimal, but it was better than what the Saotomes offered. However, Akane's interest wasn't with financial matters; that was Nabiki's realm, and the bargaining had indeed been rather impressive. 

Akane let her sister take care of that sort of thing. But that wasn't enough, in the youngest sister's book. 

"You're not paying enough to properly compensate for room and board, you know," she said. 

"I know," Herb answered irritably. "I thought the agreement had been worked out to your satisfaction."

"Oh, it has," Akane answered. "I just wanted to set a time. Tomorrow, I assume, is good?"

Herb nodded curtly. 

"Alright then. I have class, and I get home around three in the afternoon." She paused. "Around three-thirty, then."

"I already agreed to this."

"But reluctantly," Akane reminded her. "I'm just making certain."

Herb stood in an impressive swirl of brown robe and long blue hair that was clearly calculated to make Akane shut up. It only worked for a moment, but that was sufficient. 

"I don't break my word," Herb told her lowly. "The time doesn't matter – you'll get your lesson. Even if it's a waste of my time."

Akane took a step back, if only because the distance between them was far too reduced now. "I don't think it is. But okay," she nodded, and left quickly.

_I said too much,_ she thought with a small smile that she wasn't quite aware of.

***

Ryouga leaned against a wall, fiddling with the three fragments of kettle that were their find. Two of them fit together almost perfectly, she had discovered, whereas the third, the spout, required another piece to attach to. Another piece that Herb was in possession of. Ryouga narrowed her eyes at the shining bits of metal. Frustrating. 

She brushed a too-long fringe of pink hair off her forehead and to one side, folding a particularly long tendril behind one ear. She wasn't quite aware of doing that, nor was she aware of the pair of eyes that rested on her, narrowed as well but in slight worry rather than frustration, on anything other than an abstract level. 

After about half an hour of twisting around bits of metal, meshing the parts that fit together and pulling them back apart with a single-mindedness that bordered on obsession, she finally put them down. Her arms hurt, in a strange way that reminded her that she was supposed to be exhausted. 

"Finally, and you didn't even break them," Ranma commented nonchalantly. Worry alleviated for now, he fell backwards onto his futon mattress and stared at the ceiling, feeling tiredness pulling at his eyelids.

"Shut up, Saotome," Ryouga tried. It came out weak and tired, however – she was slightly surprised. 

"Do you think her plan is gonna work?"

"Of course it is, idiot," Ryouga snapped back, crumpling to the floor. It would be more comfortable to go to her own room where a futon waited rather than the floor of Ranma's, but that would require standing and she didn't feel like moving. Odd. Her legs had never hurt like this from mere walking before.  

"Okay then. Moron." There was a long pause, interrupted only by faint rustling sounds. Ranma getting comfortable for bed. "I'm goin' to sleep." Ryouga's only answer was the even breathing of sleep or something like it. 

"Lettin' me off the hook for once? I shouldn't complain." It was such a faint whisper that it shouldn't have been audible.

***

~Mordain  
AN: More Akane-centricness – mostly. I figured that I should pay some attention to my main characters too during a kinda key point for them in plot… And yes I'm going somewhere with all this, promise. And please review ^_^. They keep me inspired to write, as silly as it is to say that, they really do…


	21. Antagonism

Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma ½. No matter how much I whine about it. And I do own this fic, however much I whine about that, too…

AN: Credit to archmagesilvento, as always – and Demener, this time, for something specific to this chapter.

* * *

_****_

_**Part Three, Chapter Six: Antagonism**_

It was the question on everybody's mind. "Why are you helping them, great-grandmother?"

Cologne looked up from the thick book she was flipping through to glance at Shampoo. "Can't you see it?" she answered cryptically.

Shampoo shook her head mutely.

The matriarch chuckled. "Maybe it's good that you don't. But it's in our best interests to get that boy… out of our way, and as soon as possible," she explained. "Killing him would be excessive, and by helping them we lose a hindrance and gain an advantage."

"If you say so, great-grandmother…" Shampoo still sounded doubtful. "But I don't understand. Pig-boy just another distraction – nothing to do with us."

"Oh, it does. And I'm a little disappointed in you, Shampoo. It doesn't take three thousand years of Amazon history to recognize competition."

Shampoo's expression dropped and twisted into disgust. "Pig-boy is pervert," she announced firmly after a moment's shocked pause. "But Ranma…"

"I doubt anything will come of it," Cologne told her, much to Shampoo's guarded relief. "But we can't leave it like this."

"Right," Shampoo nodded, resolute and still slightly sickened. "What is the plan?"

Cologne turned back to her book, smiling tightly where her granddaughter couldn't see it. "How much do you remember about a place called Jusendo?"

* * *

"Keep your attention on your enemy!" Herb snapped, without stopping or indeed even slowing down.

Akane whirled, not letting the criticism upset her – she had no energy to spare for that.

The match was basic fighting only – no special techniques allowed, a rule that restricted Herb more than Akane but did not make it easy, by any stretch of the imagination. The Musk Dynasty prince was no light-fisted teacher. Throbbing bruises on Akane's shoulder and hip bore painful witness to that, and this was only _training_. She once again wondered, and suspected her curiosity would never be fully satisfied, at how Ranma – and Ryouga - had managed to defeat (or at least stalemate) her in the first place.

Herb was now slightly to her left. Keeping the distinctive pale pink and blue hair in her peripheral vision she swung a kick low but it was dodged almost before she began the movement; expecting this, Akane followed it up with a rapid triple-punch arching along Herb's path of retreat – up, left, and down, followed up by a dizzying forward spin to keep pace. The strikes connected but bounced harmlessly off of dragonscale bracers (the only armor Herb wore for this), and then they passed each other in midair.

For a frozen moment the two fighters were turned away from each other, Akane still unfolding from her somersault and Herb sliding to an unpredicted halt. Then they blurred into motion again; a spinning kick to Herb's knees missed but so did a roundhouse punch to Akane's gut.

"Never turn your back on the enemy!"

"Follow your own advice!"

"When teaching an novice one does not become a novice oneself!"

"Novice this, Confucius!"

Her kick was aimed high and unerringly for Herb's collarbone. A quick maneuver – successful, but barely – and Akane's foot bounced off of crossed bracers that imitated a wall remarkably well. It was powerful enough to shove the prince backwards several feet, however, forcing her to brake hard on her heels. In this manner Herb came to a halt with a faint squeaking noise and quickly straightened in an odd pause, uncrossing her arms and regarding her student with a disappointed look. Akane wished she could figure out why.

Akane was tired and knew it as she forcefully controlled her breathing to avoid the instinctual gasping for air that her lungs demanded. But she didn't dare rest or relax in any way. She'd learned that Herb didn't stop, but paused. And never for very long. In three hours the lesson had been taught quickly - assuming otherwise had led directly to the bruise on her shoulder.

But Herb relaxed, which startled Akane but she didn't budge from her own defensive stance.

"Stopping?" she asked guardedly, unsure of this.

"For now. You're not learning anymore."

"Not learning!? You're not teaching!" Akane instinctually took a step foreward, fully expecting combat to be resumed for her insolence.

Herb shook her head and turned halfway away, talking to the wall and leaving her side utterly undefended, as if she knew precisely how to aggravate Akane. "You say that for precisely the same reason that I'm leaving now."

And in an elegant swing of long, colorful hair, Herb left the practice hall.

Akane was angry and upset and insulted but before showing any of these she slumped to the floor, on her knees before falling ungracefully to her back, taking deep gasps of air. Exhaustion, or at least tiredness, was more important at the moment. The open door let a tiny gust of wind inside, and if it was freezing cold Akane welcomed the chill, at least for now.

"Not bad."

She didn't have to look to know who it was, but she still pushed sweat-soaked bangs out of her eyes to glare sideways at Ranma, who was leaning against the doorway to the dojo, arms crossed over his chest.

Akane hesitated before answering. It _was_ a complement, after all, even if a mild one. Finally she decided that antagonism would just take too much energy. "Thanks. How much worse is she when it's for real?" She pushed herself back up into a sitting position.

Ranma shrugged fluidly. "Not much."

"Really? Huh."

"Well, there's the chi moves," Ranma admitted. "But those would be too destructive, here."

"Chi?" Akane questioned, curious. Although she had been given no details of how Ranma managed to defeat Herb, any information was better than none.

"Like you wouldn't believe."

Akane nodded absently. That fit. She could tell, in a strange way – something about the way Herb moved, or a feeling that radiated off of her – sheer, physically manifested power of a sort that made her half afraid for her life and half even more intent to learn, to acquire even a small amount of that power for herself.

"How's Ryouga?" Akane asked, suddenly deciding to change the subject. Ranma glanced out the door before answering, face suddenly dropping into something not so nonchalant, something more serious, before lifting again so fast that she could almost imagine that it hadn't happened. "She's okay," he said, waving one hand dismissively.

_Bad topic. But… why? _Akane scowled, peeved at Ranma's avoidance of actually answering the question. "You know what I mean. What happened? He's been acting strange."

Ranma just shrugged. "I haven't noticed. Ryouga's always weird."

"Ranma…"

"What?" And he looked at her, for the first time during the conversation actually looking in her eyes, and it made Akane stumble mentally for no reason that she could think of.

"I don't know," she admitted after a pause that visibly baffled Ranma. "I'm… tired. This training is harder than I'm used to." It wasn't pleasant to admit it, but it was all she could think of to say. _But then, that was… what, three hours?_ she mentally consoled herself.

"Well," Ranma said, lifting himself up from the doorframe and taking a more typical confident stance, legs slightly apart and planted firmly on the floor, arms loosely at his sides like he was ready to spring into action any moment, yet also utterly at ease. Natural, familiar. Akane relaxed, falling again onto her back, lying flat on the welcomingly cool floor.

"You really did do pretty well," he went on, looking not quite directly at her as he delivered the compliment. Akane didn't notice. "It's just that Herb is…" Ranma had to think for a moment to find the right word. "Not a very easygoing person."

Akane just chuckled. "I got that impression." She hesitated. "I'm, um, sorry about what happened," she said finally, all in a rush, embarrassed but feeling like she ought to apologize. _Maybe if I had gone with them… _she thought, berating herself for not insisting on going along in the first place. "But I don't know _what_ happened, so I can't be very specific," she finished, neither sharp nor demanding but both, and a just a _little_ apologetic.

Ranma looked away, suddenly reticent. "It was… just a fight," he finally said. "Things happened. The mountain got blown up… I think that was mostly Herb, since he used so many chi techniques. We got found by a farmer, taken to the hospital, got out, walked home."

"Broke out," Akane corrected, but absently. That mattered little, at least until they were found and presented with a bill.

"Well, yeah," Ranma admitted, looking slightly guilty now.

"And the kettle was destroyed in the process." Akane had garnered this. "Or at least broken into bits."

"Yeah." Just the simple agreement – he was still being frustratingly vague.

"What about the bucket?"

Ranma glanced at her, confused as to why she was asking. "Gone. Hopefully forever," he added with a note of anger directed at the memory of such an insidious artifact. "Why?"

"Just wondered. It is valuable," she explained, shrugging. It was a reason made up on the spot, but it was a reason.

"I guess." Ranma fidgeted. It wasn't obvious, but Akane noticed.

She didn't ask the obvious question. That would go too far, in this uneasy truce. Instead, she closed her eyes, falling utterly into the exhaustion that made her arms shake when she tried to move them, ending the conversation without actually ending it, half-hoping he would just leave.

And when he did go, padding softly out of the dojo like he was trying not to wake her up – although of course it was just his normal way of moving, quiet – she wished that she had been able to ask just one more question.

_Are _you_ alright, Ranma? _

Akane didn't move, but she felt like smacking herself for being afraid to be sympathetic.

* * *

The next few days were a knife's edge balance of tension, a joke of uneasiness and barely concealed hatred; two girls who hated each other barely more than they hated their current selves and a boy caught in the middle.

It was dinner, the one time they were unable to avoid each other because of Kasumi's utter refusal to make a second preparation for one party, and Akane restraining herself from strangling both parties, although everyone was surprisingly quiet.

Ryouga was trying to ignore everyone and everything. The pink-haired girl stared at her plate with a focus that bordered on meditation broken only occasionally as she slowly took a bite. She was being pointed about not looking at Herb, but Ranma and Akane were nearly as bad for entirely different reasons, which severely reduced her options of where to look since it banned her gaze from the three easy directions. Backwards wasn't possible and up would be awkward, so that limited her to down, and the plate of appetizing food was remarkably pleasing to the eye.

Ranma, who was sitting to her left, nudged her side insistently. "You gonna eat?" he asked, all casual nonchalance, and Ryouga wanted to punch him or hug him or run away but settled for answering disgruntledly. She hoped that she was imagining the worry in his voice, and that he just wanted food.

"I _am_ eating, Saotome," she said, taking another bite, quickly now, as if to prove her point.

Akane, who had ended up opposite Ranma by whim of whatever deity it was that delighted in torturing Ryouga Hibiki, glared. "There's plenty of food, Ranma. You don't have to steal Ryouga's."

Lime, utterly oblivious and blissfully so, took the opportunity of the brief pause that followed to stutteringly complement Kasumi on the meal. Ranma and Ryouga, unified in purpose, glared death at him, but the tiger boy was not quite all there, utterly entranced by the casual presence of such a pleasant female.

Kasumi just smiled, and replied appropriately.

Ryouga shook her head, forcing herself to ignore that. Throwing a half-hearted smile in Akane's direction, she said, "Thank you, Akane-san." She turned back to Ranma, eyes narrowing in antagonism. "Leave off, Ranma."

Ranma rolled his eyes and shrugged. "Hey, whatever." But he didn't turn away, instead reaching out with his chopsticks and snagging a dumpling off of the plate directly in front of Ryouga. She opened her mouth to protest, ready to argue, but Ranma deposited it on her plate. She closed her mouth, then opened and closed it a few more times, not sure if speech or silence was more appropriate – or if anger or thankfulness were the more pertinent emotion. Both, it seemed. "What was that for? I'm fine, I said."

He shrugged again, finally looking a little discomfited. "What? You're still not fully recovered. You should eat."

Akane stared at him, face blank in astonishment. _Maybe he's the one who's sick? _She thought, worriedly.But she couldn't bring herself to say anything.

"Now isn't that considerate." To everyone's surprise it was Nabiki who had spoken. The middle sister usually didn't speak much during the inevitable dinner confrontation, preferring instead to sit back and watch, deriving some sort of amusement from it.

Akane didn't notice that Ryouga's cheeks reddened at the comment, but Ranma did and hurriedly glanced away, settling back into his seat and almost angrily snatching something off of his plate and eating it.

Herb observed.

* * *

"K-K-Kasu-" Lime gave up. "Tendo-san?"

"Yes?" She turned towards the blushing boy, face all innocence and mild curiosity.

"Do… do you need some help?" Kasumi was doing dishes and they were alone in the kitchen, which didn't help his composure. Lime was uncertain of this approach – what limited experience he had of females (namely Herb, for the most part) did not bode well for him, but Mint had practically shoved him through the door, determined that _one_ of them would speak with her. Stupid magazines.

"I _would_ appreciate some help, if you could dry the dishes," she admitted, pulling her sudsy hands out of the sink and wiping them on her apron. Lime was fascinated, and more than mildly intimidated. This was not what he had expected, but the direct approach always seemed to backfire.

"D… dry?" He waved his hands helplessly as she picked up and held out a plate and a white rag.

"Yes," Kasumi answered, quite unruffled. "Just take the clean dishes from there-" she pointed towards a rack that was nearly full of wet porcelain – "and put them there," she said, indicating the kitchen table. "It would be very helpful. Is that okay?"

Lime nodded. This would work. Orders he could take.

Kasumi sighed. "Thank you very much," she said as he took the dish and rag. "It's so hard to get much help around here," she went on, looking slightly resigned. She turned back to the sink and continued to scrub dishes, still talking. Lime listened and stared at the back of her head, wiping the plate with the rag without looking at what he was doing.

"I mean," Kasumi said hurriedly after a moments pause, "It's not like they don't _try_… but it never works out well, and I know it's not their fault, but…" she sighed.

"I can help you – I mean more than this – if you want, Tendo-san."

"Call me Kasumi," she said absently, then paused for a moment and turned her head to look at him, startled. "Would you? You don't have to."

"Herb-sama is teaching your younger sister as repayment for our living here," Lime explained, "But I'm not doing anything." He considered for a moment. "Wouldn't it be proper for me to do what I can, as well?" It made sense. Lime served, it was what he _did_, all he really knew how to do. And if dishes weren't quite typical – well, Herb hadn't been requiring much lately.

"I see." Kasumi paused, thinking. "Okay then – I would appreciate the help. Can you cook?"

Lime, still absently wiping the plate, looked confused at the question. "When we were traveling I did part of the cooking for Herb-sama," he said, slowly.

"Good!" Kasumi sounded happy, and Lime almost sighed in relief. "If you can cook well enough for her, I'm sure you could help me fine."

"You want me to help cook?" Lime repeated, dumbly.

"If you can cook well enough for Herb-san," Kasumi explained, "I'm sure that you'll be fine. If you want to help, that is."

"I…" Lime stumbled verbally and glanced down at his hands as if it were their fault. Carefully putting the exceedingly dry plate down on the table, he took another with equal caution and began to dry it as well, considering. "I will assist you."

"Thank you." Lime couldn't see it, but he knew that she was smiling anyway.

Lime stumbled over an appropriate response for almost a full minute, but when he finally said, "It's no trouble, Kasumi-san," she didn't complain about the long silence.

* * *

Ryouga was relieved that the ordeal of dinner was over. It had been four days but the situation hadn't improved. They were temporarily reconciled, or at least working together for the same goal in the lack of better options, but that didn't mean that she _liked_ any of the Musk Dynasty representatives. Mint and Lime were inoffensive but Ryouga's sheer hatred of their prince made them objects of dislike simply by association. Herb was another story entirely.

Ryouga tried to stop thinking so much and curled into her blanket, facing the wall. An shortage of living space and the bitter cold of winter that made the dojo unlivable had forced a rearrangement of rooms – Herb, Lime and Mint now occupied the spare room that had been Ryouga's, and Ryouga slept in the larger room that Ranma and Genma shared. A pair of screens afforded her decent privacy (almost her own room-within-a-room, really), although she would've been fine without it, of course. More or less. Anyway, this was all temporary - it would end when this whole ordeal was over, one way or the other.

One way or the other. Thought stopped there, luckily, and Ryouga fell asleep.

* * *

--Mordain

AN: It's finally out. Gah, but it took me long enough, didn't it? The death of my computer didn't help, but I saved this, at least...

Anyway, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this (late) installment! And as usual, reviews are always welcome… if you feel so inclined.

(PS: No asterisks? No tildas? What's up with THAT? Silly ffnet.)


	22. Words

Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma ½, yo.

AN: Last chapter, Demener and his "why don't you write a conversation between two random characters?" came up Kasumi and Lime, which is crazy because that's one of those 'not meant to be a pairing, really' sort of things but I did it anyway... (not that it is a pairing in this story, but it's an amusing thought isn't it...)

Huge thanks to everyone who has reviewed this story! Even though I know I'm going slowly... ;;;

Warnings: Nothing much. Gratuitous Akane? But it serves a purpose, honest. More of the not-quite Ranma/Ryouga that I'm sure everyone is tired of by now.

---

_**Part 3, Chapter 7: Words**_

Akane was exhausted. Utterly, completely, totally, and at three she ran out of synonyms or the willpower to think anymore.

_Six... hours... and she's barely winded..._ Akane was seriously starting to doubt her ability to get anything much from the training. Ryouga had explained, somewhat shyly, that the core of Herb's power came from her dragon heritage. _I_ want _to become stronger, but can I compete with blood? I'm just human, after all... _she sighed. It wasn't in her nature to give up, but this was discouraging. It had already been a week...  
  
Training with Herb was proving... different. She had been expecting to hate Herb, expecting someone with a deplorable personality, but while Herb certainly didn't know the first thing about girls, she was, for the most part, courteous, following protocol outside of training almost too perfectly. It was easy to tell that she had been raised as royalty; the habits of nobility did not wear off or hide easily.

And the training... Akane sighed. Spars... but more than that too, somehow. It was like a slow introduction to the concept of chi, and while Akane had known about it before, even used it to a very minor extent, this was different. But even without any detailed instructions she could feel it, like a bright core of energy inside herself. Not quite graspable, but there, infused into every movement she made. Her speed had improved, at least, even if chi attacks were far beyond her level.

And this had all been from watching. Just observing Herb, whose every movement was saturated with it, who extruded it like sweat even without trying. It was encouraging and depressing at the same time – she felt the power, but couldn't grasp it. Frustrating, particularly when she was this tired.

She stumbled, suddenly, and had to catch herself on the rail. She laughed again, this time at herself. _So tired, but I can't stop thinking about fighting..._

She needed to rest. That was definitely true. But first, a bath. The hot waters of the furo, and probably a short nap therein before heading to her own bed, would help the most. At least it would take the knots out of her muscles.

She reached the bathroom – checking the door, first, but there was no sign telling her that someone else was inside – and gratefully shucked out of her sweat-soaked gi, headband, and slippers into the laundry hamper as quickly as she could manage. A quick scrub-down under the shower later, she lowered herself gently into the hot water of the tub.

_There we go._ It was almost scalding, and therefore perfect. Kasumi must have filled it recently, and Akane sent a mental thanks to her oldest sister. The steam was a little thick, true, but that felt good in her lungs. Warm, relaxing humidity and a hot bath – and at this hour it was unlikely that anyone else would join her.

What more could a girl want?

She nestled her head into the corner of the tub and let her eyes slide closed, quickly falling asleep.

---  
  
The drama started when Akane was peacefully asleep and Ranma invited Ryouga out for lunch. It wasn't presented as a date, but the immediate response was wide-eyed astonishment. For a moment, Ranma was certain that he was going to be punched.

Surprisingly enough, Ryouga only glanced back and forth to reassure herself that no one else was in the vicinity, and nodded in silent acceptance.

"Okay," Ranma said, slightly confused. "Um... do you need to get ready or something?"

"We're just going to lunch, Sao- Ranma," she corrected herself grudgingly. "I agreed because I am hungry, and this place is... crowded."

"Yeah," Ranma agreed, no less confused for the explanation. "Um... let's go, then."

Ryouga hesitated. "But... hold on a second." She ran off, leaving Ranma confused.

"I thought..."

"Shut _up_!"

---

Despite her protests, when they finally did leave, Ryouga had changed – slightly. A bandanna (or a dozen, Ranma never could tell) tied her hair back into a short ponytail, and the old shirt she had been wearing was replaced with a newer black one.

"Do you actually have money?" Ryouga asked as they started off, her voice slightly mocking but also just curious.

"Would I ask you out if I didn't?" Ranma answered, still baffled from earlier.

Ryouga immediately went pink. "Don't say it like that," she whispered fiercely. "This is _not_ a date. It's lunch. I can pay for myself, thank-you."

"Alright... if you'd rather, I..." but before completing his sentence, Ranma glanced about, and suddenly came to a halt a moment later. Ryouga pulled ahead a few stepped before stopping as well and turning around.

"What is it?"

"Just hold on a 'sec."

Ryouga waited in a state of confusion, nervously poking holes in the wall behind her back. A little under a minute later a little old lady hobbled out of a nearby gate, pail in hand. Ryouga's eyes widened as she realized, but before she could say anything Ranma jumped directly into the stream of water that the old woman had clearly intended for the sidewalk.

"Thanks, 'baa-san!" Ranma-chan chirped, cutting off the lady who was trying to apologize. She ran a few steps to stand next to Ryouga. "There, now it's okay, right?"

"Huh?" Ryouga just blinked at the dripping, but now female, Ranma.

"Well, it _can't_ be a date if we're both girls, right?" She said it reasonably, shaking excess water out of her hair.

Ryouga wished the bright blue eyes that were blinking up at her weren't quite so innocent. If there was any cunning whatsoever in the expression or the words, she could be angry – as it was, she just chuckled, weakly. "Whatever, Ranma..."

"What?"

"Why are you doing this?"

"'cause I promised I would."

"Stupid promise," Ryouga muttered under her breath, but Ranma-chan heard and frowned, perplexed.

"Why-"

"Nevermind. Let's just go. But it's not a date, _I'm_ picking the restaurant, and _I'm_ paying."

"Do _you _have the money?" Ranma asked, in the exact same tone of voice in which Ryouga had asked the same question.

"Yes," she snapped back, defensively. "Kasumi gave me some. For... things," she explained briefly, reddening.

"Ah. Well, than you should spend it on 'things' then, not food," Ranma countered calmly, "Or at least, just pay for yourself."

"What made you think I was going to pay for you in the first place, Saotome?" Ryouga snapped back, face still pink.

Ranma-chan grinned. "Where do you want to go?"

---  
  
They ended up in a tiny, café-style resturaunt that was a little too close and dimly-lit for Ryouga's taste, but it was one of the few that wasn't overcrowded during the weekend lunch hour, and Ryouga didn't particularly want to go somewhere too public. As it were, they stood out by being about twenty years younger than the other customers, on average. Ryouga didn't recognize the soft music playing in the background, but it sounded at least ten years out of date.

Once they'd ordered and the waiter had respectfully bowed away, Ryouga leaned heavily on the table, resting her head in her hands and looking, overall, very dejected.

"What's the matter?"

Ryouga didn't bother to glare, although it was tempting. "Are you doing this to embarrass me? Or it not picking on the weak...?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind..." Ryouga looked away, staring at a decorative potted plant. Some sort of fern, bright green against a darker blue wall. Trying to distract herself led to the observation that it was starting to wilt around the edges, but meanwhile she absently pulled at her napkin, shredding it quickly.

"If you don't like this place we can go somewhere else," Ranma suggested, attempting to correct a situation that didn't seem to be quite satisfactory.

"It's not that." Ryouga suddenly looked back at Ranma, eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "I am _not_ in love you with you."

Ranma looked surprised. "Huh?"

Ryouga settled back, mostly satisfied with that. She glanced at the menu. "And this is _not_ a date."

Now it was Ranma's turn to look mildly disgruntled. She also looked confused, as if not sure _why_. "What do you want, then?"

Ryouga looked surprised. "I don't know."

"Then-"

"But I don't want _this_," Ryouga went on, quietly. "I don't want you feeling sorry for me. I'm _not_ weak."

"I never said you were-"

"Then why are you-"

"Because you're my friend!" Ranma interrupted, exasperated. "Because... do I really need a reason?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

"You ruined my life!" Ryouga shouted. "Never took me seriously, teased me at every opportunity, made me look like an idiot in front of Akane..."

"You slept in her _bed_. What did you want me to do?"

Ryouga reddened, and scowled. "That was-"

"Different?"

Ryouga narrowed her eyes at him rather than answering.

"Do you like me like you used to like Akane, or is that different too?"

"I loved Akane!" Ryouga insisted. "I do _not_ love you. Like... yes, and I have no idea why, other than I've gone insane."

"Loved? Not love?" Ranma pressed. Ryouga paled.

"I... I don't know."

Ranma shrugged. "Okay."

"I wish I knew what you wanted," Ryouga muttered, quietly enough so that Ranma couldn't quite hear.

"What?"

Ryouga opened her mouth as if to answer her – whether with the truth or with a lie even she wasn't certain - but was rather suddenly interrupted by a shout from the other side of the restaurant.

"Ranma!" It was a familiar voice, but Ryouga couldn't quite place it.

Ranma obviously did, however. "Hey!" the redhead called back over Ryouga's shoulder. "What are you doing here?"

Ryouga heard footsteps, and when the voice spoke again it was closer and even more agonizingly familiar. Ryouga paled.

"Just taking a break. Nice day, I thought..."

Ryouga fell backwards in her chair when a familiar head full of long brown hair leaned over her, then twisted around to regard her critically. "Who's this, Ranchan?" Ukyou asked, catching Ryouga's chair before it fell entirely to the ground.

Ryouga slipped out of the chair, falling to the floor on her hands and knees before shoving herself up. It took a few tries, but after a moment she finally managed to bring herself to her feet. She had to lean against the wall, and sidled away as fast as she could manage.

"That's just Ryou..." Ranma started, but she was interrupted by the crash of Ryouga's chair shattering under the force of a nervous kick from its previous occupant.

"Who? She looks familiar." Ukyou narrowed her eyes, determined to figure out the mystery of the girl who was leaning up against the wall, sweating profusely and looking scared for her life, all the while moving back and forth as if she couldn't figure out which way to go.

"I'm nobody!" Ryouga squeaked out, finally managing to scramble away.

Ukyou followed, still wondering what was the matter. "Hey, what's the matter?" her eyes suddenly widened as if an idea had struck her, and she reached back to touch the giant spatula strapped to her back. "Is it..."

Ryouga fainted.

"What's the matter? Did I scare her...? Sorry..." She reached down, grabbing Ryouga by the armpits to drag her back to the table. Once they had gotten two more chairs and put the unconscious girl in one, Ukyou settled in the other and sipped a cup of water the poor frazzled waiter had given her. "So who _is_ she?" Ukyou asked again, a little more insistently this time.

"You know, I'm not sure..." Ranma shook her head.

---

Ryouga groaned. _Nightmare. This has to be a nightmare. First... Ranma, now... worse..._

"Hey! Sleeping beauty!"

Ryouga squeezed her eyes closed even more tightly. _Wake up! Wake up, damn you Ryouga!_

"Hey, honey... are you okay?" The voice was _worried_ now. That was almost _worse_.

Ryouga cracked open her eyes and looked around blearily until she found Ranma. Wearily she sat up, and said in a voice of total seriousness, "Punch me."

"What!" Ranma and Ukyou exclaimed at the same time.

"Punch me!"

"Well, if you say so..." Ranma answered uncertainly, lifting her fist.

"Ranma!" Ukyou shouted, scandalized. "Hitting a girl! What's wrong with you!" She grabbed Ranma's hand and forced it back unto the table.

"Argh!" Ryouga exclaimed. _I'm dreaming! I'm dreaming! Wake up, you stupid..._ Without any warning, Ryouga lifted her head and smashed it against the table, which shattered into splinters. "That... hurt... a little... I'm awake?" she mumbled, blinking repeatedly.

"What are you _doin'_, Ryou-"

In one fluid motion, Ryouga reached to the back of her head, pulled off a bandanna, and threw it at Ranma, where it stuck itself to her mouth tenaciously. "Shut up!" she yelled at him, sitting up in her chair. She started to lean on the table and almost lost her balance before remembering that it was demolished.

Ukyou laughed. "Ryo, you're a funny girl. Now, I _would_ like an explanation. You're not... engaged to Ranchan or anything, are you?" Her eyes went dark.

"No, no!" Ryouga furiously denied, waving her hands frantically.

Ranma tried to say something just as urgently, but since her attempts to pry off the bandanna had failed, her voice was completely incoherent.

"Well, I'm glad for that," Ukyou said, all traces of hostility vanishing off of her face like they had never been there.

Ranma continued to speak, her voice louder and louder and higher and higher but still completely unintelligible underneath the bandanna.

"Shut up!" Ryouga yelled, but Ukyou just gave the mute girl a sympathetic look.

"Fine..." the pink-haired girl who wasn't mumbled, resignedly. She reached over and pulled Ranma towards her. "Tell her," she hissed at the indignant redhead, "And next time it's aimed for your _neck_." And with that threat made, she ripped the bandanna off Ranma's mouth, as painfully as she could manage.

"Ow!" Ranma protested, although she didn't actually seem to be hurt. "Wha'd ya do _that_ for, Ryou-" She caught Ukyou's curious eyes, and Ryouga's furious expression, and swallowed the rest of the name. Ryouga let her go, and she slumped back into her seat sullenly.

Ukyou smiled, satisfied. "Anyway, it's nice to meet you, Ryo."

"Nice to... um... meet you too..." Ryouga mumbled, twisting her hands around in her lap and looking at Ranma for some help. That was unlikely to be offered, however.

"You know, Ryo – is that your name? You look really familiar. Have I met you anywhere? What are you doing here? How do you know Ranma?"

Ryouga scrambled frantically for answers. "I'm, um, visiting from out of town! Staying with the Tendos. Um. Just for a little while."

"Oh." Ukyou thought for a moment. "You _do_ look familiar, though. Are you family?"

"Um... no, not really..."

"Will you give it _up_, already!" Ranma hissed at Ryouga. "Just tell her!"

Ukyou overheard. "Tell me what?"

Ranma grabbed Ryoua by the collar and yanked her closer. "What is _wrong_ with you?" Ranma hissed, lowly enough to avoid being understood by Ukyou.

"You idiot!" Ryouga whispered back. "If she thinks that this is a date, she'll kill both of us! Do you really want to die?!"

"It's not that bad-"

"Yes it is! That girl's jealous of anyone who speaks to you! And if she finds out who I am..." Ryouga shuddered. "I really _will_ die."

"You're exagg..."

"Ryo... hmm, I'm never heard of that as a girl's name..." Ukyou observed idly, more or less talking to herself as the other two 'girls' were talking privately.

Ranma cut off.

Ever so slowly, Ryouga turned to face the chef. "Um..."

"You haven't been to China recently, have you?" she asked them suddenly, noticing that she had their attention back.

Ryouga paled and started to slump. She would have fallen out of her chair, probably, if Ranma hadn't grabbed her collar to hold her up.

"You're gonna deal with this!" she hissed at her captive.

"Leave _off_, Ranma!"

"No!" Ranma smiled at Ukyou. "Actually, it's funny you ask that..."

"Yes!" Ryouga shouted, finally twisting free of Ranma's grip. She glared death at Ranma, but kept speaking, mostly to keep her quiet. "I've been to China. Jusenkyou, too, so..."

"Oh, I just knew it!" Ukyou exclaimed. "Somehow, everyone who's ever been there finds their way here... so," she went on interestedly, "what do you turn into?"

Ranma and Ryouga, quarrel forgotten, stared at her with identical blank expressions. After a moment, Ryouga fell off her chair.

"What's the matter?" She asked, looking back and forth between the two of them, not understanding.

---  
  
Fifteen minutes later they had a new table, food, and Ukyou's eyes were wide with shock. The story had been told – it was just easier that way. A very brief and slightly edited version of the story, true, but despite her bouts of depression Ryouga really _didn't_ have a death wish.

"I... I'm sorry, Ryouga..."

Ryouga winced at the pity in her voice. "It's alright, Ukyou. We're... that is, Cologne is helping us fix the kettle, so hopefully this will be over, soon..." She glanced towards Ranma, almost desperate for _some_ assistance in explaining, but the pig-tailed boy was slightly preoccupied with cooling himself off after getting doused with near-boiling water to change him back to normal. Ryouga smacked his face into the table in irritation.

"Hey!" Ranma protested, retaliating by a smack to the back of Ryouga's head.

Ryouga lifted up her fists, but a look from Ukyou made her stop, at least for a moment.

"Why are you two fighting?" Ukyou demanded. "If anyone deserves a good beating, it's this Herb..."

Ranma and Ryouga exchanged a glance. "That's not a good idea, not right now," Ryouga admitted slowly.

"I know, I know!" Ukyou grumbled, pulling out one of her throwing spatulas and toying with it angrily. "But it just makes me-"

"It makes me mad too, you know," Ryouga said, almost amusedly.

Ukyou looked briefly contrite before relaxing. "Yeah... sorry. So Cologne's helping you? I wonder why. That's not like her..."

Ranma shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe she's being nice?" It was, however, a statement that earned him two glares that told him that he was, without a doubt, an idiot.

"Moron." Ryouga succinctly summed up her opinion of that possibility.

Ukyou nodded in agreement. "Her? Not a chance. Did she ask you to marry Shampoo for it? Date her?"

"No..." Ranma finally looked slightly troubled. "None of that. I wonder why..."

Ryouga sat up in her chair suddenly, eyes going wide. _It couldn't be... how could she know?!_

Ranma noticed her sudden distress. "What's wrong, Ryouga?"

"Um... nothing... just remembered... um... nothing."

"What?" Ranma shook his head, and went on. "She wants the kettle, she said. Her tribe has all sorts of weird magical artifacts; this is just another one to add to the heap, I guess."

"Yeah, that's right," Ryouga agreed, looking away as though distracted.

"Um..."

Ryouga stood, so suddenly that her chopsticks went flying. "I've got to use the... the bathroom."

Then she was gone.

Ukyou blinked. "What was _that_?"

---  
  
Ryouga emerged from the men's bathroom a few minutes later. Despite being stuck as a female for months now, she couldn't bring herself to enter the girl's room except when she had to. It earned her some curious stares and the occasional baffled goggle, but it was better than the alternative. By the time she got back to the table, Ukyou was gone.

"She had to go back to work she said." Ranma explained, "and you were in there an awfully long time."

"Sorry."

Ranma snorted. "Right. Mind telling me what that was all about?"

"How about we go to the park, instead?"

---  
  
It was because Ranma had paid for her lunch before she could protest, Ryouga told herself firmly. But the soft wave of happiness that swept through her as she looked down onto the small cone of soft-serve chocolate she had bought herself was still unmistakable, and embarrassing.

Ranma was already half-done with his own strawberry. Slowly, Ryouga began on her own, wishing it didn't taste _quite_ so good.

Ranma glanced at her. "You seem happy."

"Maybe I am, then."

"Why?" Ranma's voice was honestly curious.

"I don't know. Good ice cream. It's a nice day. I don't have to worry about getting lost, and..." _I'm on a date. And maybe if I am insane, it's okay..._

Ranma looked up at the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun. "I guess it is pretty nice. Never thought that bein' with me would make you happy, though."

"Why you-" Ryouga cut herself off, blushing furiously. "I didn't say that."

"What?"

"Do you really want to fight?" Ranma looked surprised. "Just because I like you doesn't mean I don't want to kick your ass, Saotome," she said smugly.

"Your ice cream would be ruined."

Ryouga looked down hastily. Sure enough, the cone had started to melt in earnest. Ryouga quickly licked up the worst of it. Halfway through she realized the trick, and froze, looking slowly up at Ranma. "You _bastard_."

Ranma laughed. "You know, you're..." he stopped, looking utterly baffled.

"I'm what?" Ryouga demanded angrily.

"If I said you were cute," Ranma said slowly, "Not that I'm sayin' you are – what would you do?"

"If you said-" Ryouga blinked. "_What_?!"

Ranma coughed, looking away. "Just asking."

"If you... said... if you said that I was cute," Ryouga managed to get out, her voice smoothing after a while, "I would have to kill you."

Ranma nodded. "Yup, that's what I thought. What is it with people who like me and the tendency towards insane violence?"

Ryouga's shoulder shook like her arm, completely on it's own, wanted to punch him. And while the rest of Ryouga agreed, with some effort she forced it to stop. Words were better. "We develop it as a necessity, Ran...chan, to deal with you and your stupidity."

For a moment Ranma stared at her in blank astonishment. Then he laughed, as pink ice cream dripped down his fingers. "You know," he said disbelievingly, "I think you are cute."

To be honest, he had been warned. So Ranma had no one to blame but himself when he found himself taking off through the trees of the park to a somewhat rough landing on a road beyond the edge of it – hundreds of feet away.

Ryouga got there a moment later. "Who's what now?" she asked, angrily.

Ranma sat up, inspecting his knee that had caught the brunt of an abrupt landing. "You're cute, I said." Determining that his leg was fine, he jumped to his feet and smiled at the astonished Ryouga. "Always have been."

Ryouga stumbled back a few steps and sat down on the curb, so heavily it was mostly a fall. "What..." she whispered to herself, eyes still wide.

Ranma sat down next to her. "The curse is weird, isn't it..." he said conversationally. "My girl form looks almost identical to this body. Now, if you looked the same, I could say it was a coincidence; but you don't. You're taller, your hair's a different color, and you still look pretty much the same as you did before – just female, that's all. So, since I look at you now and think you're cute, then you must've been cute as a guy. I just didn't, y'know, _look_ then." He thought for a moment. "Funny, I didn't look even with you as a girl until just now."

"Oh." Ryouga said it in a very small voice. "Okay."

They sat in silence for a long moment.

"Your ice cream is melting," Ranma remarked after a few minutes. He had lost his own in the brief flight.

Ryouga stared at it for a moment, then stood slowly, walked to a nearby garbage can, and threw it out, shaking her hands clean as best she could. Then she sat back down on the sidewalk, facing Ranma this time.

"This is weird enough without you saying things like that," she said slowly.

"What?"

"That I was cute as a guy, too."

Ranma shrugged, leaning back. "If I say you're cute now, I don't have a choice, do I? It doesn't really matter, I should know that if anyone does. Your hair's pink now-" The observation made Ryouga fiddle with it nervously – "and some organs moved around. I'm not sayin' that you shouldn't get a cure. Bein' stuck in the wrong body is just... not right. But you're still Ryouga, you couldn't hide that if you _tried_. Not from me, and not from anyone else who knows you."

"I'm a guy, and you don't find it weird that I said I like you?" Ryouga demanded. "I don't know... I don't know what it really is, I can't think straight – it's gotta be this body, messing with my brain. Don't you think that? It's gotta be..." she trailed off, voice dwindling away.

"Hm?" Ranma looked confused. "It might be the body. Or..." he hesitated. "Maybe you don't hate me as much as you say you do."

"Oh no. I hate you." Ryouga said flatly.

"Oh, good. I was worried something was _wrong_," Ranma answered, grinning in a way that generally pissed Ryouga off beyond all hope of reason. This time, however, the only reaction was a slight narrowing of eyes.

"I'm recovered enough to make you regret saying much more, Saotome."

---

Akane woke slowly. She could feel the benefit of her training, now, as more than just a heavy ache; it was there in her muscles as she stepped out of the furo, dried, and slipped into her bathrobe. _I'm going with Ranma next time,_ she resolved, combing out her wet hair with one hand. _No matter how he says I shouldn't._

She stepped out of the bathroom and got all of two steps down the hallway before bumping headlong into an equally distracted Ryouga, who had been staring at the ground, deep in thought. Akane scrambled to recover and re-tighten the bathrobe around herself. It hadn't opened enough for anything to be visible, but Ryouga was staring at her, face bright pink, and she responded instinctually.

"What are you...!" she trailed off her outraged exclamation as Ryouga stumbled back, lowering her head in apology.

"I'm sorry, Akane-san," the pink-haired girl mumbled, shuffling to one side to let Akane pass.

"It's... it's okay, Ryouga," Akane responded, confused. "I should've been looking where I was going."

Ryouga looked up at her, relieved. "Oh... okay then." And she was gone, down the steps and around the corner.

Akane watched her go for a moment, wondering what had been strange about that encounter. True, it was kind of weird just having Ryouga around for so long a period of time, but other than a sort of lingering depression he – she – was as normal as could be expected. She was getting along with Ranma slightly better than normal, even if their sniping was not much lessened in frequency. Around Akane she was as shy as ever, although getting slightly better – she wasn't blushing for no apparent reason, and her stuttering had diminished.

Akane smiled, softly. _I hope we can get him cured._ She had reached her room by this point and dressed automatically, still smiling and not quite aware of it.

---  
  
-Mordain

AN: Hope you enjoyed it! (and reviews are always welcome)


	23. And Flying

Disclaimer: I don't own Ranma ½. If you've heard otherwise, it's all a dirty, dirty lie. As much as I'd _like_ to be making money off of this, sadly, I am not.

AN: Faster than a lame snail, able to leap tall building if she takes the elevator, Mordain presents: The next chapter!

Thank you, everyone, for all the reviews. . I apologize for being such a slowpoke… too many distractions lately…

Warnings: Nothing worse than other chapters. Plot actually manages to continue (or start to, at least). _I_ was impressed, anyway.

-

_**Part Three, Chapter Eight: And Flying**_

"Ranma?"

"Yeah?" Ranma wasn't surprised, but he hadn't been expecting the address, so he stopped in the hallway a little abruptly.

She looked determined, so her next words were relatively predictable. "I'm going with you."

"What – Akane, you can't…"

"I'm coming, I said!" she repeated, louder this time.

"We don't even know where we're going…"

"I don't care." She was confident now, looking at him with that determined, stubborn expression that he knew he couldn't argue with. "If… if I had been there the first time, maybe this wouldn't be necessary! I've been training! I know you don't like Herb, but… I think that I'm strong enough, now."

"Amusing."

They both whirled at the unexpected interruption, but then they were hardly talking in private so it should not have been so much of a surprise.

Herb looked steadily at Ranma, eyes flickering between anger and disgust and apathy, before removing her gaze to Akane. "She's weak." Akane winced. "She's human, there's no help for it. But-" and now she looked back, piercingly, at Ranma- "I will not allow anyone who has the capacity to affect the outcome of this to stay behind."

"But if she gets hurt – it'll be my fault!"

"Ranma, you idi-"

"No, it will not," Herb interrupted Akane smoothly. "It is her decision to go. It will be her own responsibility to keep herself, and others, alive. As well as yours, and…" she grimaced, "my own."

Ranma stared back at Herb, undaunted. "I won't lose. But Cologne didn't even know what were would be facing – except that it would probably be dangerous." He didn't look at Akane. "She should stay out of my way, stay safe."

"_IDIOT!_" Akane smacked him, hard, on the back of his head.

"Ouch! Hey, what'd 'ya do that for?"

Akane was fuming. "I won't get in the way! You be sure to stay out of _my_ way!"

Ranma mentally stumbled, and instantly went from determined to 'what did I do now' mode. "But-"

"I'd advise you to allow her to go." Herb looked briefly over Ranma's shoulder before turning and leaving the living room, presumably to go back outside.

"I'm coming," Akane said firmly, "and I'm not letting you stop me."

-

Ranma was packing when he felt a presence approach him from behind. He tensed; couldn't be too careful even in this relatively safe house, lately. But it was just Nabiki.

"Hey," she greeted, smiling lazily at Ranma, and waving some sort of envelope in the air. "Last chance for a purchase before you go." Plucking a rectangle deftly out of the envelope, she waved it three times before flipping it over the reveal what was imprinted on the other side.

"A picture of Akane!" It was tasteful, at least, just a simple picture of her face that could have been a school photograph. "No way!"

"Aw… but maybe…" With a quick movement Nabiki had three more spread out like playing cards, all facing her.

"What the-"

She revealed the first one. Akane, sitting on a bicycle in workout clothing, smiled off to the left of the photographer. It was a nice shot – even Ranma had to admit to himself that she looked good in it - but not a revealing one, of course.

"When did you-"

"No?" Nabiki interrupted him, tucking it back into the envelope and flipping over the next. "I've got more."

Ranma looked away, face suddenly bright red. He hadn't seen it very clearly, but the pink-haired girl in the photograph hadn't been wearing much, if anything. Nabiki didn't have the same qualms about guests as she did about relatives. "What the _hell_…!" he shouted, really angry this time, before Nabiki cut him off again.

"There's always this…" Ranma couldn't help it – he glanced. The new picture had the same subject as the last – only with a distinctly different build. But like the second picture of Akane, it was a tasteful one, and obviously a candid shot – Ryouga was smiling, one hand curling through black hair as he laughed.

Ranma's anger ran cold. "What the hell…"

Nabiki smirked before flipping it over and tucking all four pictures safely in the envelope. "If you're not interested in a purchase, I'll take my leave."

"What are you-"

"If you change your mind, you know where to find me," Nabiki opened to the door. "Knowing the truth is important for me, especially when it has to do with my family," she said, turning to leave. "It might even be worth something to me…" the door finished swinging closed, cutting off anything else she might have said.

Ranma stared after her for a moment before growling under his breath and resumed packing, angrily. _She was just guessing… after all, she's got pictures of me, Ryouga is no different… _The thought made him pause. _Wait… _

-

Ryouga was more surprised that Ranma let Akane come than she was. The pink-haired girl gave Akane a long, worried look and then the moment was over; there was little she could do about it. Akane was too stubborn to be swayed.

Besides, danger at the end of their trip was a distant and uncertain prospect, while Herb was _right there_ and not going anywhere. The two girls-who-weren't seethed with hatred just being _near_ the other; this prospect of a long journey together was not an easy prospect, and insufferable as she was Herb was better at hiding it.

Ryouga almost yelped when she felt a hand land on her shoulder.

"Relax." It was Ranma, and Ryouga found herself following the instruction without really wanting too. As soon as she realized this she stiffened, irritated.

"Don't tell me you like that… that…"

Ranma shrugged. "He's in the exact same situation as you are, and you're both at fault." His face suddenly brightened like a light bulb had been turned on over his head, and he laughed. "It's just like you were with me!"

"No it's not!"

"Yes, it is-"

"Ranma?"

"Yeah, Akane?"

"Are you ready to go?"

"Uh, sure." That felt backwards.

"Okay."

Ryouga stared after her as she turned and walked away. Something seemed… different. As if Akane were distracted by something. Yet she must be focused on the upcoming trip, or else she wouldn't have been able to convince Ranma – and her family – to let her go in the first place. Or maybe there was something else… it was slightly strange, Ryouga realized, that she was so relaxed.

"Ryouga?" Ranma looked at her oddly.

Ryouga shook her head. "I'm fine." No point in dwelling on it.

"If you say so." There was an uncomfortable pause. "We're taking a boat," he went on, somewhat lamely.

"Better than swimming, I guess," Ryouga shrugged, thinking. "How long do you think it will take?"

"A few hours on the boat, a week to get through China…"

"A week." She frowned. A week with… her. Him. Herb, whatever pronoun you wanted to use. The person, a genetic freak of nature, who had turned _him_ into… her… and opened the gate of what could happen and what she desperately didn't _want_ to happen.

"Yeah." Ranma, if anything, looked confused about anything that could possibly be the matter. "We've got a map of some train routes, too… don't know where Nabiki got the money, but she said she didn't want her sister walking if she was gonna insist on going."

"A _train_." Ryouga didn't think that she could get much angrier, but that managed it. "A whole… week… with…" A quick glance revealed that Herb was nearby. Around the corner, but easily within earshot if she let her voice rise to the levels that it wanted to. "I'll walk." And with that, she turned on her heel and stormed outside.

Ranma moved to follow, hesitated, and then the moment was lost as a hand fell on his shoulder.

"Don't bother," Nabiki said smoothly. "He'll be back…" her voice faded away as Ryouga slowly walked out of earshot, not nearly as resolute now that she was out of sight.

-

She didn't want to meet them, wanted to find her way into that comfortable feeling of having absolutely no clue where she was, but her feet made a different decision, and her mind knew what was best; they looked slightly surprised to find her on the boat before them but all she did was give a curt nod, note that Akane was walking up first, and turn away.

-

Soun cried, of course, as he saw them off. The other three were considerably less emotional, although Kasumi fretted at her sister.

At the last minute Genma jumped aboard the little boat, and was immediately knocked back off by Ranma.

The panda surfaced a moment later, holding up a sign. :What was that for:

"What makes you think you're coming, old man!" Ranma shouted back.

Genma clambered back on to shore and shook himself dry (soaking Soun in the process). He pulled out his marker and another sign and started to write, marker squeaking furiously.

Ranma waited.

And waited.

And waited.

His patience ran out when the tenth sign joined the pile of reasons that Genma had written. "Okay, okay!" he huffed.

Genma jumped on board again, and smacked Ranma hard in the head. :Stupid boy:

"Can we get going now?" Ryouga asked, impatiently, from the other side of the deck. The Musk trio had ducked inside.

Genma threw a sign at her. :Anchors away:

Ryouga tossed it back with perfect accuracy, beaning the panda squarely on the skull and nearly making him topple back into the water. "Shut up, old man!"

-

As they vanished into the distance, Soun picked up the signs that Genma had left behind.

And sweatdropped.

Repeated several times on each one was the same, short sentence.

:Because you're going to Jusenkyou, you fool:

Nabiki snorted, and flipped through her collection of pictures, wondering if it would be profitable to take more. _Too bad Ranma didn't buy anything…_ she paused abruptly in her silent count. _Wait… there's only four…_ A quick run through of her mental checklist later she grinned, realizing what was missing. Who had managed to steal something from her was another matter, but it would prove interesting either way.

-

It was nice boat, at least, boasting a nice, reasonably sized deck for watching the water and a few rooms below, to keep out of the sun. The wind was a little stinging but otherwise pleasant, which was what kept Akane above. That, and the rather crowded conditions inside at the moment.

Ryouga didn't seem to be talking to anyone, but Akane didn't really find anything strange about this; after all, Herb was there and they quite clearly didn't get along and had obvious reasons not to. The reason that Ranma was worried (and hid it badly, as always) was less obvious, but she let it go with all the other minor things she didn't understand about Ranma.

Mint, leaning up against the rail on the other side of the deck, looked slightly green.

"Seasick?" she called, shouting a little to be heard over the sound of the wind. It was a nice day, too pleasant to lock herself below decks.

Mint looked at her, startled, and shook his head silently no.

"Oh, good…" She trailed off, her attempt at conversation having fallen flat.

Herb chose that moment to appear from below, tri-colored hair billowing dramatically. Then the wind changed and it went in her eyes, ruining the effect until she managed to bring it under control.

Mint bristled to attention, although he didn't stand. It was disturbingly like a dog suddenly sitting neatly on its haunches when its master entered the room.

Herb looked at Akane, however, rather than the wolf-boy. "Training," she said simply, and Akane jumped to her feet, knowing that she wasn't behaving much better than Mint but unable to help herself.

"Good. I was getting bored," she answered, trying to cover instinctive obedience.

Herb just nodded, but for a brief moment Akane thought she saw the corners of the prince's mouth rise; then it was gone, and such untactical observations were a crucial waste of attention.

Ten minutes later Akane, with a loud yell, went flying overboard. The two-member crew of the little boat went ballistic for a few moments, throwing everything into chaos, until Lime appeared out of nowhere, dove smoothly into the water, and climbed back up the side of the boat a minute later, carrying a soaked and irritated, but unharmed, Akane over his shoulder.

"Akane!" Ranma appeared at the top of the stairs. "Herb, you bas-"

"Ranma!" Akane shouted back to get his attention. "It's alright." Lime set her gently down on the deck and stepped away quickly, flushing belatedly. "I'm fine. We were just training, that's all."

"Training?" he was conflicted over that one, she could tell. For Ranma, it was never a bad time to train.

"Yes. And I'm fine." She smiled thankfully up at Lime, who stuttered back, unable to respond coherently to a female.

A pink head of hair peered up from the stairwell, just enough to briefly scan the scene, but Ryouga just vanished a moment after appearing.

Ranma hadn't noticed. "Well, okay…" he turned his gaze, peering westward. "We're almost there anyway…"

He was pointedly not looking at Herb. Maybe he _did_ know that Ryouga was right behind him, Akane mused. She shook her head. No point in worrying about him.

She turned back to Herb. "I'm ready."

The prince nodded. "Very well."

"Wait, you're-" Ranma cut himself off when he realized that no one was paying him the slightest bit of attention.

Akane did notice, however, that he settled himself into a corner of the deck – opposite Mint and the drenched Lime – and watched them, silently. She ignored him after that, all concentration focused on her opponent.

-

Ryouga leaned into the corner, pressing her eyes into her arm. Not crying, just… aggravated. Tense. Confined. This didn't _suit_ her, stuck in one place; as much as she had hated always getting lost she had molded her entire life around it. Staying meant dealing with things, and she didn't know _how_.

Feelings. She hated the world. So much easier just to love Akane and have an excuse for not telling her; so much more difficult to find… well, not love, but something else with Ranma and spend so much time around him that staying quiet was impossible. There was no silent wilderness to confess to anymore. It was small consolation that Ranma didn't seem to know what to do any better than Ryouga did, but at least _he_ was acting normally, speaking without thinking and saying things that he couldn't _possibly_ know the meaning of.

The boat suddenly started to rock, gently at first and then wildly, until suddenly coming to a loud, jarring halt.

They must have arrived. A crewmember came down a moment later and informed her of as much; she followed him out.

-

They were in the country quite illegally but it didn't seem to matter, and it was hardly the first time for all but one of them. They had arrived in a small town a long distance from anywhere of any importance, and it was simple matter from there to find the next train in the general direction of where they wanted to go.

Herb seemed impatient, but he was the one who knew where they were going. After all that time, the fact that Cologne had only been able to tell them to go to Jusenkyou was a little frustrating.

'_The council of Jusenkyou are a secretive people,'_ Cologne's words echoed in Ranma's memory, '_but you must convince them to share their knowledge. There is a place called Jusendo, where the great underground source of water is channeled to the surface. The cold is the source of the cursed springs, but the hot has different magic. You must find the hot water and reforge the kettle in its heat – this is the only way to restore the magic. The Jusenkyou guide should have the knowledge of how to find the hot water. However, Jusendo is in the territory of a vicious tribe, who will not allow you entrance so easily…'_

Ranma sighed, not for the first time, and glanced out of the corner of his eyes at Ryouga, who was visibly fidgeting.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing, and stop asking, Saotome…" Ryouga leaned up against the wall, turning away.

"What's gotten _into_ you, Hibiki?" Ranma said irritably.

He couldn't see Ryouga's face, but the sheer _force_ of her glare reflected off the wall of the empty freight car – of course it hadn't been a _passenger_ train going to such a remote place – and hit him squarely between the eyes. "Shut up, Ranma. You're so cheerful it's aggravating."

"Cheerful…" Ranma chuckled, weakly. "Well, yeah, I mean we're going to Jusenkyou…"

"So you can be a full man again," Ryouga finished quietly.

"Oh." Ranma's face dropped briefly, than brightened. "Well, once we get the kettle fixed, you can too-"

The door flew open, suddenly, and a rather wind-lashed Akane stumbled in, barely avoiding her heel being smacked by the door as it swung closed behind her. She nodded absently to the two of them and slumped to the floor, obviously exhausted but, judging from the fragment of a smile on her face, content as well. Ranma immediately cut off.

"Akane?"

She looked up at him, tiredly, and grinned. "Yeah… Ranma?" she answered, short of breath.

"You shouldn't go on to the roof, Akane," Ryouga told her, her tone slipping into worried.

Akane just smiled again. "But the view… it's gorgeous!" She was clearly undeterred. "And the balance practice… that's good too." She seemed to have finally caught her breath, and spoke eagerly. "There's no windows in this train, and it's stuffy," she suddenly complained. "Waste of countryside."

Neither of the other two managed to respond to that. It was pretty scenery, they both knew, but one could hate even beauty if forced to walk through it for weeks on end…

"Why did you come down?" Ryouga asked awkwardly, trying to make conversation.

"Tired," Akane answered simply after a moment. "And it's almost dark, anyway."

-

(earlier)

Herb touched down, delicately, on the roof of the engine, and was immediately forced to grab onto the railing as the train threatened to knock her off as easily as a leaf. She spent a moment catching her breath – as fast as she was in the air, the train was only slightly slower than her fastest sprint and, as a mechanical device, untiring.

"Herb-sensei?" Akane had been sitting on the edge of the roof, watching the scenery go by. She pulled herself to her feet and offered a hand to help Herb regain her balance, but Herb just shook her head, not needing it anymore.

Akane just bowed, slightly, retracting her hand, and didn't sit back down. She did, however, return her gaze to the passing countryside.

Herb wished that she knew what the Japanese girl wanted. Training, yes, it was clear that the girl had a desire to become stronger that would have served her admirably as a prospective warrior of the Musk tribe; but there was something else as well.

As much as she had tried avoiding discussion of things that didn't concern her – and little did other than the quest for the Kaisufuu – it seemed to be impossible for one to be among the inhabitants of Nerima and _not_ hear about the soap opera of the Tendo household. The general consensus seemed to be that there was an attachment between the two engaged, whether they admitted to it or not. Herb was above concerning herself with such adolescent pettiness – besides, she was hardly an expert on the female mind, having barely even met one until shortly before _becoming_ one – but she found herself taking an interest in training Akane, despite her initial reluctance to teach her. _She has a strong strength of will,_ Herb thought approvingly. _And true talent. Perhaps not entirely worthy of my teaching, but not completely undeserving, either._

"It's a beautiful country," Akane said suddenly.

Herb blinked, startled out of her thoughts, and glanced at her student before scanning their surroundings. "Yes," she agreed vaguely.

"Can you see where we're going, from the sky?"

"Not yet." How small did the girl think China was? _For that matter, why is she so enthralled by the scenery? It's just land._ "We are still several days away."

"Oh." Akane didn't look disappointed, although from her answer it seemed that she should have.

They stood in silence for another few minutes, Herb feeling steadily more uncomfortable and clueless as to why, until the sun was in the midst of setting in a brilliant burst of orange and gold.

"I'm going inside," Herb announced once it was clear that dusk had fallen.

Akane jumped. "Al-alright," she agreed. "Herb-sensei."

"I wouldn't advise falling asleep up here." Before Akane could answer, Herb jumped down between the nearest two cars. Whatever answer her student offered, she didn't hear it between the noise of the train, the wind, and the door slamming firmly closed between her and the outside.

Once fully inside, she scanned the room. There were only two empty cars on the train, and they had been split between the Musk and the Japanese.

Mint and Lime were asleep – so much for guard duty – but she decided to be generous and not wake them up. Besides, there wasn't much for them to guard and fewer prospective thieves.

She clearly underestimated Mint's sense of smell, however, because no sooner had she settled herself against the opposite wall than the wolf-boy stirred, nose twitching before the rest of him.

"Herb-sama?" he questioned, rubbing the sleep out of blurry eyes.

"Yes?"

He let out a high-pitched yelp of surprise and kicked Lime, who woke up with a similar sound of surprise and annoyance. "Please forgive us, Herb-sama!" Mint shouted, bowing low to the floor.

Herb waved him off "Never mind. You should rest. I am not very worried."

"Thank you, Herb-sama…"

Belatedly, Lime realized what was going on and managed to look contrite.

Herb laid down. "But since you are awake, now, I expect you not to fall asleep again as I rest." Before either of them could answer, she turned to face the wall and was still.

If she hadn't have known that he trip would be so long, Herb would never have indulged in as much flying as she had. Without wings, defying gravity was merely a matter of expending enough energy to convince it to ignore her, and generally it wasn't a good idea to expend her reserves. Especially since she had been stuck female, which bottlenecked her power in a highly aggravating manner – not that she had informed her tenuous allies of this fact.

The floor was hard and unyieldingly flat, impossible to really get comfortable, but within seconds of lying down a sleep that was more like unconsciousness – restorative, but restless – drew her down, washing over the discomfiting feeling that nagged at her to stay awake and knocking her asleep

-

Akane, for all her enthusiasm and excitement, was not used to traveling. She dropped off to sleep shortly after coming down from the roof and was soon snoring away merrily in a corner.

Ranma sighed in her general direction, tilting his head back against the wall to stare straight up at the ceiling. "Is she always like that?" he asked Ryouga, who was similarly sleepless.

"Not always," the cursed girl admitted slowly, with a distinct tone of embarrassment in her voice.

The only noise after that was the soft shuffle of playing cards being fiddled with. Ryouga was restless after all.

"Do you want to play something?" Ranma offered, voice neutral. They had tried to play before, but the sheer length of the train ride had defeated that plan when Ryouga grew frustrated with her losing streak. And they didn't know enough games between the two of them to keep interest in it.

"I guess. But not old maid." Ryouga answered at length, grudgingly.

"Go fish?"

"Poker?"

The list of suggestions went on, but Ryouga dismissed them all. It was a good thing, in most cases, because rather quickly Ranma started listing games that he didn't know how to play, and then ones that he was pretty sure he was making up.

"War?"

"N-" Ryouga stopped in her automatic denial, thought for a second, and then shrugged. "Sure."

-

The game was something to do, at least, but it wasn't terribly exciting. Ryouga couldn't even manage to stay enthusiastic about her steady lead, and could feel exhaustion creeping up on her. Damn it, if only the cards could shuffle themselves into the right order so she could win…

"It's better than walking," Ranma said as he picked up his win – a nine to a ten, smug bastard – and tossed them on his pile, "but I kinda _liked_ traveling myself."

"You'll get your chance," Ryouga shrugged, tossing out the new card and taking her pair with a half-hearted grin. "The tracks don't go all the way to Jusenkyou."

"If they did I would've done this a year ago," Ranma agreed. "Of course, Nabiki wouldn't have paid for them a year ago…"

"I hope this isn't all for nothing," Ryouga said irritably, wanting to distract herself from the reminder that the springs were useless to her. "Cologne makes us wait more than a week and all she says is to go to Jusenkyou…"

"Yeah, she is being too nice," Ranma agreed, misunderstanding. "I wonder why…"

Ryouga didn't answer, paying more attention to the next few plays than the game really deserved. Ranma waited, but she was quite clearly not going to volunteer anything.

"Do you know why?" he eventually prompted. "You seemed to, back there…"

"I don't know," she answered quietly. "But I could feel something… when we went to see what Cologne'd found out, Shampoo…" she shuddered. "I think she _hated_ me."

"Hated you?" Ranma won the next play but almost missed it. "Why would she… the only person she really doesn't like is Akane, but that's because…" his eyes widened. "Oh. But… how would they know that?" he asked, confused. "I mean, even you don't _really_ know…"

"Idiot."

"What?"

"You're an idiot." Ryouga was careful to speak quietly, barely loud enough for Ranma to hear – but that was too loud, with Akane so nearby. "Everything you're doing. So stupid."

"But-"

"I don't deserve the sympathy you give me," she said quietly. "Why are you so nice to me? Why did you save my life when I wanted you to end it? It's not fair."

Ranma didn't say anything. Ryouga glanced up, but his expression was just that of patient listening mixed equally with clueless.

"It's all your fault." She cut herself off, glancing at Akane – who was still just peacefully sleeping, thank goodness – and tossed her cards to the floor. "I'm tired. Goodnight."

And with that, she lay down, pulling her pillow over and curling on her side, facing away from Ranma to stare at the wall, feeling blank and lost even though she knew precisely where she was.

"When I was stuck as a girl," Ranma said suddenly, "I hated it. Would've done anything to be myself again, anything but love someone I couldn't trust. I stuck my hands in fire instead, trying to be rid of it. But you don't have that option, but you're one of my oldest friends…" He came to an awkward stop, leaving Ryouga confused as to what his point was. With a snap the light went off, and she heard him settling down to rest on the floor.

"I trust you."

-

-Mordain

AN: Adieu!


End file.
